


Obfuscation

by AcidAngel21



Series: Winter Obi-Wan [4]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker fights like Black Widow, Awesome Padmé Amidala, BAMF Shmi Skywalker, Brotherly Love, Canon-Typical Violence, Clone Rumor Mill, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Clones (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Padmé Amidala, Force-Sensitive Shmi Skywalker, Freedom Fighters, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Human Disaster Obi-Wan Kenobi, I'm Bad At Tagging, Learning how to Force, Mandalorian Culture, Mando'a, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Questionable Decisions of the Jedi Council, Shaak Ti Cares About Clones, Slavery, Talking is good for you, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, Winter Soldier!Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 180,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22358839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcidAngel21/pseuds/AcidAngel21
Summary: The Clone Wars have begun. The Jedi Order, fractured to its core, commands the Grand Army of the Republic. Divided between two increasingly at odds sides of a debate they're not supposed to be aware of, the clones discover a conspiracy that puts them at odds with the Order and the Republic they were created to protect.Meanwhile, the Abiik-Kemirs struggle to adapt to their new reality. Powerful forces are vying not only for their lives, but for their souls. A Dark being stalks them through visions and nightmares and they must decide what part they will play in the battle for the soul of the galaxy between the Light and the Dark.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Clone Troopers, Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, CC-2224 | Cody & CC-3636 | Wolffe, CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 & Shaak Ti, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex & CC-3636 | Wolffe, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & CT-7567 | Rex, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Shmi Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Ahsoka Tano, Shmi Skywalker & CT-7567 | Rex
Series: Winter Obi-Wan [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593982
Comments: 244
Kudos: 196





	1. The Force in the Clones

**Author's Note:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Ori’vod-Older Sibling/Brother  
> Aliit-Family  
> Haran-Mandalorian version of hell  
> Vod’ika-Younger Sibling/Brother  
> Jetii-Jedi  
> Manda-The collective soul or heaven  
> Shebs-Backside  
> Kar Kyr’amur-Star Killer  
> Di’kut-Idiot

He remembered what death felt like.

When Rex had been deployed to Geonosis, he’d had certain expectations. There was a certain way things were going to go, and that was how it was. The Jedi were going to be in command. They were going to fight for the Republic. Some of his brothers weren’t going to be alive at the end of the day. Knowing that hadn’t prepared him for the feeling of death crawling icy fingers up his spine and squeezing his throat. It hadn’t prepared him for feeling the life draining out of his brother who died next to him. It hadn’t prepared him for the sensation of death everywhere. Even learning the shields hadn’t kept him from being nearly overwhelmed by all the hot-light feeling of the Jedi in the Temple.

But he’d had a job to do.

Now, a week after deserting (with his brothers’ help, he was still in shock) he was on Naboo. And the feeling of the Abiik-Kemirs’ bond sat in the back of his head. Ben had called the one with Ejasa a training bond. Rex thought that was a Jedi thing. Maybe it was just a Force thing. Rex had known he was a bit, for lack of a better term, luckier than a lot of his brothers. His aim was better. He always seemed to be in the right place at the right time in training. But the Force wasn’t for clones; so that couldn’t be what it was. Besides, he’d grown up seeing the holos of Hibir in action, just like the rest of his brothers. He was proud of his brothers, and they were good. But not like that.

He was sitting in the warm sunlight in clothes that were far too delicate and soft to be practical for anything, watching Ejasa go through a kata with a stick shaped like a lightsaber. She’d offered to teach him, but that was definitely not for him. When he’d said so, she’d given off the purposefully blank feeling in the Force that he’d learned meant she was either very pissed about something or very worried about something. (Rather than the coincidental blankness, that still felt natural, of hiding) Ben was sitting somewhere nearby and meditating from the feel of it. Ejasa’s son was in a hover chair soaking up the sun like one of those little plants in the garden. And hadn’t that been a shock. First, Hibir was alive and had an aliit that Rex had been following. But not only that, but part of their unit was blood like him and his brothers.

Seeing them fighting for each other against the Council had reminded him of some uncomfortable parallels between what the Council had been threatening to do and had done, and what the longnecks did to brothers who weren’t performing the way they were supposed to. He hadn’t lied when he said that he was leaving so that his brothers who got out would have someone on the outside to help them. He also couldn’t deny that for the first time in his life, he saw the chance to choose and wanted to know what that felt like. But he couldn’t leave people who were in the same position as him and shouldn’t have been to die for no reason other than existing and live with himself. That was the bottom line.

So now he was here, surrounded by them, learning about things that would’ve gotten him reconditioned at best and disposed of at worst. And he had no idea what in haran he was supposed to do about that. Learning about the Force was addicting. The more he learned the more he wanted to know. The rush of being outside of himself and feeling of the entire galaxy vibrating in his bones wiped out everything else when he let himself drink too deep. That this had been there the whole time was something he didn’t have the mind to think about. That something could become so vital in so short a time scared him. That it could be ripped away like he’d felt being done to this little aliit was worse.

But he was a Clone Captain. He was nothing if not adaptable. And these people seemed to have the right idea. Besides. Ben had trained them. Rex had grown up seeing the kind of damage Ben could do. If his aliit was even half as bad as he was when they were back to full capacity, this was going to be interesting.

///

Shaak Ti had spent the entire morning meditating on the state of the Order. She was not pleased to be sent away with such short notice. However, it was imperative that the clones be checked for the kind of triggers that had been planted in Ben’s head. It was also imperative that they discover what had been done to Ben while he was in the Kaminoan’s grasp. Shaak had found the general air around the Temple unnerving and the actions of the Council more than a little reprehensible and disquieting. But the clones had no one on the planet to watch over them except for bounty hunters. She was many things; a Jedi Master, a daughter of Shili, a master of Makashi and Ataru, and a daughter of the Force. She was not, however, without compassion for these beings. They deserved to have someone who would listen to them and help them. Shaak intended to provide that.

Qui-Gon had been correct. The Force felt strange on Kamino. Off in some undefinable way. She had a hypothesis that beyond the cloning, that may be the result of what had turned Ben into Hibir. The Kaminoans seemed not to know what to make of her. They’d treated her with respect and allowed her to go where she pleased to a point. They had been watching Knight Vos, and it was likely that her every move was being observed as well. She could sense life following her wherever she went, despite how strange the Force felt.

She was walking through one of the dormitories what she felt the flash of something. Someone. She was supposed to be the only Force Sensitive being in the facility. She looked over at the wall of bunks. A quick probe of the knot of five clones there and she felt it again. One of them had a gift. She looked at her datapad, pretending to look at other groups of clones to not draw attention to the squad. Domino Squad. The Force was whispering to her, but the murky depths of it were hard to hear and even harder to interpret. This squad had someone who felt not unlike some of the Force Sensitive people who knew how to shield and hadn’t been taught much beyond that.

As she continued her walk, she meditated on this. It was something that shouldn’t have been possible. But the Force worked in mysterious ways. She had a bad feeling that the Kaminoans wouldn’t appreciate that. Already, the words ‘reconditioning’ and ‘scrapped’ were coming up with an alarming frequency. Were they to suspect any aberration, it likely wouldn’t end well for him. Perhaps she could teach him. She had trained padawans before. His age and his circumstances were unusual; and with the Council in the state that it was at the moment, it was unlikely they’d make any sort of allowance that was so controversial. This would require further meditation.

///

Cody watched Admiral Yularen brief General Jinn and Commander Tano on the Christophsis assault. The empty space from his vod’ika’s absence itched like the scab above his eye. It was strange, the difference between the dead and someone who wasn’t dead but needed to be treated like they were for their own safety. The space they left felt bigger somehow. At least Cody had something to focus on. Hibir’s guidance about implanted triggers had led Cody on a wild rollerfish chase through every single training manual and flash-training module he could get his hands on. When that all failed, he’d had to bring in Bins to try and slice into whatever he couldn’t reach. The kicker was that it all had to be done without letting the Jedi catch wind of it. Generals Ti and Vos would probably be fine. General Koon had a good enough reputation with the Wolfpack that he’d probably be fine too. Even General Jinn probably wouldn’t have been a problem. But from what Cody had seen, once one of them knew, the whole damned Temple would know within a week, so nothing doing telling any of them there might be a problem. Besides, they were sending shinies into battle. Commander Tano was way too young to be heading into the clusterkriff Christophsis was bound to be, but here she was anyway. Never mind whether that was any of Cody’s business, there was something that wasn’t right about that.

“Commander Cody can fill you in on the troopers assigned to the relief portion of the mission, General.” Cody snapped to attention when Yularen said his name.

“Yes, thank you, Admiral. Commander, if you please?” General Jinn was looking at him expectantly.

“On the controls for the stealth ship you have Ringo, who was involved in the first battle of Geonosis, and one of our shinies, Blitz. Both have the highest marks on all of the simulations, sir. The entire gunner crew are all some of the most experienced in the GAR. Good listeners, they follow commands well. The command crew is made up of the most experienced command unit currently in the 212th. You’ve got Krayt on the sensor readouts, Stardust on communications, Brandy in engineering, and Aiwha on tech. Captain Stacks will be here with Commander Tano.”

Cody had handpicked every man. He had complete faith in all of their abilities to do their work. If there was a problem, well, he’d be there with the General regardless. Stacks could help the Commander learn what she needed to know. If they were going to put a jetti shiny on the front lines, Cody was damn well going to make sure she learned what she needed to know to survive.

“Thank you, Commander Cody.”

Cody knew a dismissal when he heard one. He saluted and walked off, taking note of the apprehension that’d appeared in General Jinn’s eyes when Commander Tano’s name had come up. It seemed like the General had an opinion about the Commander being on the front lines too.

He marched into the briefing room he’d booked with Stacks and Bins. A quick check for bugs and holo-cams and then he settled to wait. Bins had said something about some sort of coded message that he wanted to run by all of them. Cody kept his mind from wandering. Shielding or no, it wouldn’t do any good to speculate about who might want to talk to them. It might be 99 for all he knew. That wouldn’t be so bad, actually, now that Cody thought about it. 99 was always a pick-up to talk to; and Manda knew Cody could use some of that.

Stacks got in first, bucket off, tattoo on his cheekbone finally done with the scabbing stage.

“Hey, vod.”

Cody nodded back at him, taking off his own bucket.

“You ready for Christophsis?” Cody was mostly asking to take up the silence. Stacks was nothing if not prepared. That was the whole point of leaving him with the Commander in the first place.

“This is going to be a rough one, but yeah. I’ve got it all down. What’s the Commander like, anyway?”

“She’s a shiny. She was on Geonosis for the battle, but she wasn’t in command at all. She cares about us vode, but she doesn’t know that much about any of us but Rex and Blitz.” She’d looked almost as shattered about Rex disappearing as Cody had felt about letting his vod go. Stacks hid the wince at Rex’s name better than Cody ever did under his bucket. That wound was still raw, even weeks later. Nothing against Stacks, but Rex had been the best, and they both knew it.

“So I’m helping her out, then?”

“Don’t make it obvious. She’s got to prove herself,” the words felt sour on Cody’s tongue and he hated himself for saying them.

Really, what was the Council thinking sending one their shinies to do something like this? At least the brothers who were shinies were trained for this; but jetii shinies had nothing to prepare them for what was out there. He couldn’t forget the deadeyed, haunted look on Rex’s face when all had been said and done and their buckets had come off. The things he’d said about feeling the vode’s lives draining out of them all around him spun around Cody’s head like the storms on Kamino. If a brother who wasn’t anything like a Jedi felt all of that, Cody didn’t want to even think about what the Commander would feel when this was all over. The thought made him feel sick.

Bins walked in, glancing between the two of them before settling in one of the chairs across from Cody.

“Rex sent us something!” Bins was almost vibrating with excitement, his face alight with anticipation.

“And you’re sure it was him?” Cody couldn't help but be skeptical.

“I verified it all myself. Nobody else touched it but me. It’s our brother!”

“Put it up!” Stacks was almost vibrating with his own excitement.

Bins put in the data stick, practically bouncing in his seat as the message loaded.

Rex’s face appeared on the screen. Cody looked over everything he could see. His brother looked okay! A lot better than he had the last time Cody’d seen him, anyway. The shadows under his eyes were a lot paler, his cheeks had filled out a bit, and there was the spark of a mission in his eyes.

“This is probably one of the only times I’m going to be able to talk to you. This is as secure as it gets, but I’ve got to make it quick anyway. I can’t tell you where we are or where we’re headed. I’m okay. They actually offered me a huge amount of outs until I told them I was there for the count. They’re recovering. Slowly. Ben and Ejasa are back on their feet already and Silas keeps trying to train. Coric would kick his shebs. I’m working on it all from my end, but there’s no frame in place yet. If you’ve got anyone, send them through Llanic and tell them to ask for the Kar Kyr’amur from Poy Sivron at the Ryl Chainer cantina. She’ll know what it means. I’ve heard about Shaak Ti. I didn’t get any sort of bad feeling from her, but the Force is muddied around her, so be careful.

"Cod’ika, keep an eye out and get a brain scan! One of the docs found a tumor in my head and Silas said it looked like it could be a chip of some sort. Stacks, watch out for our brothers. There’s no one who could do better than you. Bins, if they find the tumor, look there. If it is what Silas says it might be then that’s probably where you’ll find the triggers. I know you’ll figure it out. Vode’an!”

The room rang with the silence at the end of Rex’s message and it was like his voice was still echoing around them. Cody felt like he’d been kicked in the chest and from the looks on his brothers’ faces, they all felt the same. The empty space in room felt like a physical presence and Cody saw Bins’ eyes flicking to the empty seat next to him.

“Well, we’ve got our orders. We’ve got to bring Coric in anyway, may as well be now. We know he’ll keep quiet,” Cody said, standing and grabbing his bucket off the table.

Bins grabbed the datastick and started doing something to the computer while Stacks followed him out.

They walked to Coric’s bunk silently, Stacks pacing Cody on the left. Brothers rushed around the halls of the Negotiator in the well organized chaos of the GAR. Cody returned the respectful nods, careful to keep everything off his face. They were a solid legion, but he hadn’t gotten the chance to really go through and nitpick the personnel files; and that meant any one of them might accidentally leak it back to the longnecks. Coric had already proven he was solid, though. He’d been the one to treat Rex for what Ejasa had said was psychic shock from the Force and he hadn’t told a single soul what he’d seen. Not even Cody.

The bunks were relatively empty and Coric was the only one in his squad who was there. He snapped to attention as soon as he saw Cody and Stacks coming to his bunk.

“What is it, Cody?” He asked, nodding at Stacks.

“We need to talk to you. Doctor-patient,” Cody said, making sure not to glance around the room like he wanted to.

“Of course. Right away, Commander, Captain.”

Cody led the way to a tiny, out of the way briefing room. One scan for bugs and holo-cams by Stacks later and they were all seated around the small round table, datapad of everything they’d managed to find sitting in front of Coric. Stacks filled Coric in on what Rex told them, leaving out their vod’s name. Coric raised an eyebrow anyway and Cody wanted to laugh. Not a single thing got past him. Not a one. Coric looked over the information, silent for a few minutes before he looked at them both.

“Well, the easiest one of the four of us to justify would be Bins. He doesn’t have any sort of official posting for the relief mission, like you said. If I find some sort of chip, we’ll want to take it out right away, right?” He glanced up at Cody to check.

“That’s right. Stacks can make it official if you need any sort of orders or paperwork. I want Stacks and myself next if you find one. Then work your way through, starting with brothers we know can be trusted not to blab before we’re ready. The Jedi don’t know about this and we need to have all the information we can get to before we bring one of them in. Besides, we don’t know if we can trust General Jinn yet,” Cody said.

“Alright. I can just say it’s a follow-up from that incident with the navicomputer last week. Di’kut got himself electrocuted, so it won’t look too suspicious to do some sort of scan.” Coric got up and left to get started.

“How much room do we have, Stacks?” Cody hated having his hands tied like this.

“We’ll be at Christophsis in about forty hours, so Bins’ll be clear. By the time we’re done, we might be able to start releasing the 212th from whatever triggers we’ve got. We’re on as good of a timetable as we could hope for, really. And we’re in a better position than most people like us start out in, anyway,” Stacks sounded fine, but his eyebrows were drawn together.

“You’ve got a story, vod?” Cody really should be doing his paperwork, but he knew that wouldn’t go well right now if he tried.

“Have I told you about the legend of the Angels of Iego?” Asked Stacks, voice already slipping into storyteller mode.

///

Rex sat in the training room, legs crossed, the Force washing over him like the oceans on Kamino. It felt so different in hyperspace. The Buurenaar Cabur had its own unique flavor in the Force too: Darkness mixed evenly with Light and with Ejasa, Ben, and Silas’s presences coating every room and coalescing in pools around their quarters. He stretched himself out, feeling the room around him, seeing the entire ship as clearly as if he was looking at a set of schematics. He breathed and it felt like the Force filled his lungs. He floated on the ebbs and swells of it all, crests and troughs of giant waves becoming part of him like his bones. The cold cloak of Dark Ejasa had draped around him through the bond felt safe somehow. He could stretch beyond it, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that not even the strongest jetti could get through it.

Through the bond he felt the other’s presences. Ejasa’s grounded, bedrock presence immersed in the Force like his own. Ben’s powerful, ocean-like presence as well ordered as a droid’s. Silas’s like a pot of boiling, white hot metal bubbling over with a never-ending supply of energy. It felt so _right_ in such an alien way, being connected to people like this. Rex didn’t want to examine that. He was well aware that he was still the outsider here, whether they said it or not. Ben was considered a brother by the clones, but he didn’t know anything about them; and Rex didn’t know enough about Ben, but knew too much about Hibir. He projected it all into the Force as a question, not expecting an answer. It just felt like the thing to do.

Silas’s presence settled next to him, but Rex was too deep in to acknowledge him outside of what Rex figured was the equivalent of a wave in the Force. He got back what felt like a smile. Then it was like the supergiant star that was Silas’s signature difused all the way into the Force around them, superheated plasma infused with patches of matter at almost absolute zero stretching into the Force like strands of kelp.

Rex could _see_ it. He could see the bonds stretching between the four of them like desert gold durasteel cables. He could see what he could only assume was the Force shifting and stirring around the two of them in lazy, foggy clouds of gold, white, and copper and ivy-like vines of dark purple, deep blue, and black. Rex could see it all moving around him and through his body, rising and falling as he breathed like the pools of the Force around him were part of his lungs. He didn’t have any words for the beauty of it all and he felt Silas’s unbridled joy, heart racing in excitement, solid foundation of contentment underneath it like they were his own. Rex remembered Ejasa telling him what emotions were like in the Force for her. If it was always this hard for her to tell them apart then he was amazed she ever knew what she was feeling at all.

He stared at the Force watching it all move like some of his brothers used to watch the ocean on Kamino. He had no idea how long he sat like that before he came back to himself, feeling slightly claustrophobic and more than a little blind. He felt Silas’s presence expand like a bubble and saw a tiny head shake.

“What was that?” He couldn’t even find it in himself to be annoyed at how rough his voice sounded.

“That was the Force. Buir said that I should show you what I see so that you could get a look at what you were connected to. Seeing is believing and all that kind of poodoo.” He leaned over, bending his spine back in a way Rex was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be doing with whiplash.

“That’s what we’re all connected to?” The memories of it were seared into Rex’s head like the flash training on Kamino.

“Yup. It doesn’t look the same all the time. The balance is different and the actual aesthetics change a lot depending on the history of the place, what kind of Force Users are there, what’s happening at any given moment, all that stuff. It can be really distracting if the place is strong with the Force too,” he cracked his left arm as he talked, rolling the right in a way Rex knew for a fact he wasn’t supposed to.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, some places are like Wells of Force. Some of them are Neutral, some of them are Dark, some of them are Light, it all depends. All of them are really old, though. Usually where there’s a Light Well there’ll be a Dark too. That’s why the Jedi Temple was built on a Neutral Well. Too dangerous to expose themselves to a Dark Well like that.” The eyeroll was almost visible through the mask.

“Neutral? I thought it was just Light and Dark.” Rex stretched his legs out, knees cracking, muscles as stiff as boards.

“Neutral is more the Force as a whole. It’s kind of like water, you know? It’s not acidic or basic, there’s a lot of it, you need it to live, but it doesn’t do much on its own. It needs to interact with things.”

“So the jetiise turn it Light when they draw on it?”

“Sort of. You bring the Neutral into you, and it turns Light or Dark depending on how you use it and what you use it for. A Neutral Well is actually pretty rare. One the size of that monster’s almost unheard of. The planet we’re heading to actually has a ton of little Light and Dark Wells scattered all over the place. It’s great for getting to know what they feel like by themselves. Just be careful not to go too deep into it. Wells can suck you under forever before you even know you’re in trouble.” Silas rubbed at a scar at the base of his skull.

“Personal experience?” Rex felt the room grow still and cold as he asked; and he wondered what those colors looked like now.

“Something like that. You’ll be fine. Buir is really good about knowing if one of us is going too far in. One of us’ll pull you out if you get sucked under. Don’t worry about it.” He stood up and offered Rex a hand.

Kyber crystal gathering. Rex had a strange feeling something important was going to happen. He wasn’t sure he was happy about it either.

///

“General Ti?”

Shaak felt CT-27-5555 outside her door and opened her eyes, drawing back into herself from the odd Light on Kamino.

“Yes, come in.”

She didn’t need to see his face to feel the nerves coming off of him. He was a ball of anxiety in the Force and the Dark was drawn to it like iron filings to a magnet. That would have to be worked on, but that was a matter for another time. She examined the sensor once more to make sure nobody was listening in or watching them before she looked at him. He hid his nerves well, making eye contact with her and standing tall at perfect attention. He had relatively good control of himself. That was a good start, but not uncommon. It seemed that to survive, most of the men developed good control. She knew that learning the reason why would be a trial. But for now, it was a good quality for this particular trooper to have.

“At ease, cadet. Please have a seat.” She made certain to keep her own emotions out of the Force. There was no need to overwhelm him.

He glanced around, eyes flicking around her office before he sat down, back still stiff and straight. She could almost hear him registering exits and places things could be hidden. Her heart broke for the results of the flash training, but the damage had been done. Now to move forward.

“Do you have a name I can call you?” The practice the clones had started of naming themselves had made the Force sing when she’d heard of it. If this trooper had one, she wanted to use it.

The flash of shock went through the Force like one of the lightning bolts outside. Shaak smoothed it over, letting the little ripples of it spiral outward in the Force.

“Fives, sir,” he said, voice still formal. The rightness of a name made the Force sound like a trilling, flowing song in Togruti to Shaak.

“Fives. What have the Kaminoans taught you of the Jedi way?” Very little, Shaak knew. They’d made them into somewhat mystical figures, unfortunately. It made the Jedi out to be far more unified and invulnerable than they’d ever been.

“You use the Force, you grow up in your Temple like we do here to learn the way, you use lightsabers instead of blasters. Not very much outside of what it looks like when you use the Force, what all of the lightsaber styles look like, and how they’re used, sir.” He was watching her face as he answered. She could feel him checking her through the Force, but she could sense he didn’t know he was doing so. Amazing.

“Those things are true, from a certain point of view. The Force is all around us. It binds together all that lives in the galaxy, surrounds us all, and flows through everything and everyone like the ocean below us. Some are born with the ability to sense and use the Force, a gift given to us by the Force itself. It is those people who become Jedi. Not all of them, of course, but many. We are all of us, children of the Force in our way. What most do not know about Force Sensitives is that it is not just a power set. It is part of us, as deep down as the marrow of our bones and as superficial as the texture of our skin. One can be Force Sensitive, powerfully so, without ever having been trained. In fact, many people in galaxy are just so. We can feel the Force like another sense, another dimension to the fabric of the universe around us. Life, death, all the strange, beautiful things in the galaxy, all of it breathes and flows in the Force.” She felt him stretching out, sharp eyes on her face.

“What does that have to do with me, if I may ask, sir?” He added the last part of the question quickly, like he’d forgotten.

“When I first arrived here, I walked through the entire complex. As I walked through the dormitories, I sensed another being in the Force who was as strong as many of those in the Temple. I was meant to be the only Force Sensitive being here, so I searched this presence out. That led me to Domino Squad. You have a gift, Fives.”

His eyes widened and tendrils of fear swept through the Force like wind.

“Do not be afraid. I’ve not told anyone. The Kaminoans have proved they cannot be trusted with such matters. Search your feelings. The Force will tell you the truth, always.” Never mind that the others on the Council seemed to be having such difficulty hearing that truth now. She released the frustration from the thought and drew on the Light, careful to keep the emotion away from Fives.

“That’s not. Excuse me, sir; but that doesn’t make any sense! I’m a clone! Jango Fett wasn’t Force Sensitive, and they can’t make us Force Sensitive. How could I be? Why would-it doesn’t make sense.”

“The Kaminoans do not control the Force, and any being of any origin can be chosen by the Force to have this gift. We don’t know why the Force chooses those it does, but it has given you the gift, regardless.” She made sure to impress the importance of it on her words. Even if he didn’t want to be trained past having proper shields, he needed to connect to the Force the way he was meant to. He’d only be half of himself otherwise.

“But why one of us? I mean, Rex I get, but-” he cut himself off, eyes wide like he’d revealed some terrible secret. Shaak had wondered about the Captain. His presence had been so strange. The truth of it came through the Force, clear as a bell.

“If it was possible for one of you, why not another? I doubt he was the only one of your brothers who was blond. Doesn’t it make sense that more than one of you would be Force Sensitive as well? There are so many of your brothers, I cannot believe that you two are the only ones. As far as why, the reasons for you are no more clear than the reasons for me. Perhaps that is only for the Force to know. Regardless, before you leave Kamino, you must learn to shield. Anything else you wish to learn, you can. And if you don’t want to learn anything else, you won’t be forced to.” Shaak wrapped her fingers around the Kyber crystal in her robe pocket. She’d give it to him anyway. The Force whispered that it belonged in his hands, whatever he chose to do.

“I’d suggest you tell your squad as well. While it is more difficult to keep secrets with others around, they will sense the difference. I’ve found it is best to have support when taking on such an endeavor as well. The Force is not a solitary thing, and luminous beings though we may be, we are social creatures whether we wish to be or not.” The pleased irony of using Master Yoda’s words in such a setting was quite undignified. But that didn’t make it any less amusing.

Regardless, how could one say that they didn’t deserve the chance to learn like any other padawan? They had the same sense of potential in the Force as any other beginner. The idea that they would be passed over for something so clearly out of their control made Shaak’s heart weep. She smoothed her own troubled thoughts over with the Light. This was not about that, however connected the two may be in spirit.

“You want to train me?” His eyes were wide with disbelief and he looked like he was waiting for whatever test she was pulling.

“If you will allow me that honor. If you would prefer another teacher, there are others who will be coming here who would be more than amenable to mentoring you.” Not that Knight Vos would be her first choice for anyone’s Master save Knight Secura. But his rather untraditional manner might be advantageous in this case.

“I think I’d rather it was you, General Ti, sir. General Vos was really strange.” He looked slightly disturbed. Ah, Knight Vos. Such a strange individual.

“I would be honored, Cadet Fives. This belongs to you. Guard it as best you can.” She handed him the violet Kyber crystal and felt the Force adjust, a massive puzzle piece settling into its rightful place as soon as the crystal touched his hand. His eyes widened and she could feel the connection, strong and true. The Force truly worked in mysterious and wonderful ways.


	2. Scuttlebutt and Kyber Crystal Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which people see things and the Galactic rumor mill turns, but not as fast as the Clone rumor mill.

Ben hadn’t ever found a crystal on this planet. He’d buried the original crystal from his ‘saber he’d used as Hibir and gotten lucky finding another in the wastes of Tatooine. At the time, he’d thought it would be impossible for him to heal. In the state he was in now, he wasn’t sure searching for a new crystal was a wise idea, but there was nothing for it. Almost as soon as he’d set foot on the planet he’d gotten lost in the Force. The hundreds of tiny Wells of Dark and Light called him, begging him to let them pull him under. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten how intoxicating the power in this place was.

He walked into a cave, following the breezes of Dark and Light and came face to face with a vision of two pieces of himself. Hibir stood, eyes dead, back ramrod straight, covered in weapons from head to toe, with his hands clenched at his sides. Obi-Wan stood next to him, pity on every part of his face, hair in the padawan cut that had left vague memories of a braid swinging against Ben’s shoulder, light tan Jedi robes on like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You forgot about us.” Hibir’s voice was as flat and dull as his eyes and Ben felt them cut into him like vibroblades.

“I couldn’t forget you. I tried to forget you, and you wouldn’t get out of my head!”

“You forgot about me.” Obi-Wan’s voice wasn’t accusing. He spoke like being forgotten was just a simple matter of fact for him. From what Ben remembered, maybe that was true. His words cut even deeper than Hibir’s.

“I didn’t want to. I tried to hold on as hard as I could! I don’t even remember when I forgot, it was all just gone!”

“I know. I don’t want you to try and remember everything about being me.”

Ben stared at Obi-Wan. His eyes were wide and earnest, face so much more open than Ben could ever remember letting his be. Hibir was staring at him too in a way that made it clear that he didn’t understand anything about Obi-Wan.

“Ben, if you had held on to everything that made us me we all would’ve died. The pieces of me that survived are still there. Hibir saved us. Being stronger or less selfish or whatever it is you’re telling yourself makes what was done to us your fault wouldn’t have changed anything besides how much more they would’ve put us through. I still would’ve died. Hibir still would’ve existed. You would still exist. You know what might’ve happened, though? You might not have ever found Shmi and Anakin. You might’ve had to try and pull through all by yourself. They might’ve gotten taken in by the Jedi; and as much as I might’ve been completely devoted once, you know as well as I do that they never would’ve let Anakin stay with Shmi. Then where would the both of them be? Where would we be? Where would Rex be? What would’ve happened to the clones?” He moved closer as he talked and by the time he was done, he was right in front of Ben. His eyes were hard in the same way Ben knew his own went when he was telling someone something they needed to understand.

“I’m not angry that you forgot being me. I can’t say I’m okay with what we did as Hibir; but I don’t blame us, and neither should you. It was so far out of our control that the idea of even imagining resisting is laughable. I know you’re afraid of carrying a lightsaber again after what happened with Dooku, but you can’t let him take anything more away from us.” Obi-Wan’s arms were crossed and he wasn’t backing down. Ben could feel vague memories of doing the same thing to Jinn stirring in the back of his head.

“I’ll never be gone. Not the way you want me to be. But you’re the one in control like I never was. You have the strongest parts of what the three of us were made of. You have every weapon, every tool to take down the demagolka that did this to us. So get out and do it. Break them apart like they did to us. Avenge us. Remember everything you can . Don’t let them take it away from us.” Hibir’s eyes burned on Ben’s skin as he spoke

Ben looked down at his hands, the weight of what had been done to him finally cracking onto his bones in a way it never had. He looked back up at Hibir and Obi-Wan, the past and the dead. The ghosts of both of them were behind Ben’s eyes every time he looked at himself and he could finally see where the things that hadn’t been completely erased came from. The loyalty, the strength, the will. Ghosts of who he used to be the and ravaged remnants the Kaminoans and whoever else had left behind glued together by everything that made Ben who he was.

He looked at them and he nodded.

Obi-Wan smiled, grief in his eyes lined by peace and acceptance as he faded from in front of Ben’s eyes. Hibir was still looking at him, dead eyes burning into Ben’s soul.

“We don’t know who did this to us. But when you find out, don’t go in alone, and don’t let Shmi or Anakin go with you either. If I get dragged out again, neither of us will be happy, especially if they’re there.”

Hibir faded, walking away like he was about to go on a mission.

Ben found himself standing in front of a Kyber crystal growth, an aubergine one clutched in his hand the same way he remembered clutching onto the first one he’d ever harvested.

///

“Ahsoka, I want you to get to know Captain Stacks, alright?” Ahsoka looked over at Master Qui-Gon.

“Master?” Ahsoka had gotten to know a lot of the other clones, but Cody, Stacks, and Bins were usually on the bridge or doing something or just plain not around.

“He’s going to be advising you while I’m flying the stealth ship when we reach Christophsis. And in any case, as Jedi, it is our duty to support the men. We cannot do that properly if we don’t know anything about them. You’re also going to be on the front with me; and it will be easier for them to follow your command if they know who are. Commander Cody already knows you relatively well, but Captain Stacks doesn’t,” he never shifted from his meditation pose, crosslegged on the floor, as he spoke. He never opened his eyes either.

Ahsoka pushed down the urge to sigh. Ever since they’d been deployed it’d been a struggle to get Master Qui-Gon to do much other than prepare for the mission and meditate. Her lessons had fallen by the wayside and she could see her Master running himself ragged already. She was already worried about what the war was doing to everybody, and they hadn’t even been properly deployed yet. Still, the clones were always less intimidating than Admiral Yularen. So talking to Stacks wouldn’t be so bad. She hoped.

“Okay, Master. Anything else?”

He opened an eye and gave her the same sad smile he’d been giving her since the Petranaki Arena. “No, Ahsoka. Just make sure you meditate and run your lightsaber katas before we reach Radnor.”

“Yes, Master Qui-Gon.”

The walk to the Negotiator’s databanks felt like it took longer than it normally did. The clones she hadn’t talked to yet still didn’t seem to know what to make of her. She had a passing moment of wishing she was going to go talk to Waxer and Boil. She breathed it out into the Force, feeling the life in it around her like Master Qui-Gon said to do. It really was crazy, how different they all were. Ahsoka didn’t understand how people thought they were all the same. Even Admiral Yularen seemed to make that mistake, and he’d been serving with them longer. Granted, it was only a couple months, but still. That should be enough time to see how different they are. Ahsoka was sure she could’ve seen it in the time they’d been on the Negotiator, even without the Force.

She turned into the databanks, absentmindedly swiping her datachip over the scanner. The banks weren’t anywhere near the size of the Archives, but they were still pretty big. But it was pretty much a guarantee that Stacks would be here from what she’d heard from Boil. She nodded to the man at the registry and wandered around the databanks. Boil was right on the credit about where to find him. His tattoo of a starbird cut across the left side of his face like one of those old ink drawings Master Qui-Gon like to look at sometimes. Said starbird was a bit wrinkled from the raised eyebrow.

“Hey, Stacks,” she said.

“Hello, Commander Tano. How can I help you?” He put down the datapad he’d been reading and turned to give her his full attention.

“I just wanted to follow up on a few things Admiral Yularen said.” Force, where had that come from?

“Sure thing, Commander.” He was standing at attention now. It still felt so strange having people do that. Especially when they looked like Fett. Ahsoka still hadn’t forgotten him dropping the Abiik-Kemirs’ ‘sabers into the arena then flying away like a karking LAAT/i.

“So, if Admiral Yularen is going to be there, what are we supposed to be doing?”

“Technically, I think he has to at least take any orders you give into account. I’m there mostly as an advisor. And, if I may sir, I’d advise you to listen to the Admiral and General Unduli.”

“I was planning to. I don’t know how much you guys actually know about Geonosis. I’m sorry, I don’t know if you were there.” Ahsoka really did feel bad about that. But everything about Geonosis was foggy except for the droid factory, the parts in the arena, and that gods-awful fight with Dooku that she couldn’t stop dreaming about.

“I was a part of the group that came in with General Jinn. It’s alright, sir. All of you were pretty out of it when we got there.”

“No kidding. What was that hike even like for you guys? I mean, the sand was brutal when we went out, and that was at night! And there weren’t even any droids!”

“Hot, mostly. Nothing we hadn’t trained for.” She could feel the slight lie through the Force. Another gift from her time with Padmé and the Abiik-Kemirs.

“If I never see another desert planet again, it’ll be too soon.” The sand blowing around had been hell on her montrals. It was even worse than all of the activity around here. He laughed anyway.

“Oh I don’t know. You get some pretty interesting stories from desert planets like that.”

“Like what?” Ahsoka sat on the nearby table where Stacks had put his datapad.

“Have you ever heard the story of the Ryl Serpent?”

“I thought Ryloth was more of a jungle planet,” she said, shifting on the table.

“This story comes from one of the desert worlds in Hutt Space. They say that there was this Serpent of Ryloth that granted enormous power to whoever owned it. ‘Course, the Hutts wanted that power for themselves, so they stole the Serpent from Ryloth and gave it as a gift to one of their newly instated rulers. The Twi’leks knew about the Serpent, and knew that it would rise for their people. So they rallied around the beast and broke its chains. Once it was freed, it granted its people the powers it’d been forced to bestow on the Hutt. All contact was lost with the planet. The Hutts scrambled to get there and restore their power, but when they arrived, all the power of the Serpent was behind the Twi’leks. They beat back the Hutts from the planet. Then they asked the Serpent what they should do to repay it, and it told them to spread its gift until Ryloth could be free again. It’s one of the stories that Twi’lek dancers tell; especially the ones that work through the Hutts. It mostly came from the actual sacking of one of the Hutt empires years ago.”

“But what actually happened?” Ahsoka’s fingers were wrapped around her ‘saber hilt and she wondered about the Force.

“Nobody knows. The Hutt was sacked, that much is true. But it happened so fast that nobody really knew how or why. Just that the Hutts were never able to retake the planet once they lost it.”

“Maybe it was the Force.”

Stacks smiled a bit. “Maybe. I don’t know about all that; but I guess you never know.”

“How do you know that story anyway?”

“You’d be surprised what kinds of things wind up in memory archives and databanks, Commander.”

“Huh.” Ahsoka settled back and looked around the databanks.

Maybe it wasn’t such a boring place to be after all.

///

Shmi settled into a meditation pose and let herself drift. Her entire sense of presence was like a gigantic dune of sand crushing her. As she closed her eyes, that was what she saw too. A gigantic dune of sand stretching far above her head and as wide as she could see in either direction. She sighed, feeling the weight of it all and every second of her life on her shoulders. She didn’t let herself get loaded down like this for a reason. Still, there was nothing to do but go through it. She gathered herself up, wrapping herself tightly in the Light and the Dark and started to go through the dune, a grain at a time.

To start, their lives had changed drastically over the course of two months. They had existed in the shadows for as long as they had been free. Even the concept of those they were friends with was enough to send an entire cascade of sand sliding on top of the dune. She felt it, weighed each grain on her head before she released them into the Force, watching each grain blow by her eyes.

Then there was the rage, the never-ending, boiling rage at what the Jedi had done. At what Dooku had done. At what was being done to Rex’s brothers. At the Hutts for what they had done to Shmi and everyone she'd known before she’d gotten freed and so many after. It was hot enough to make glass of the sand it heaped on Shmi’s head. She felt the Dark respond, feeding on her anger and feeding into it, a vicious cycle that would drag her underneath and never let her go. She breathed it in, the intoxicating, venomous vapors of wrath, then let it go, a red hot river of molten glassy sand that burned everything in its path as it went.

Next was the sadness, as deep down as the planet’s core. Each grain showed her scenes etched into her memory. Ben’s face the first day he’d appeared on Tatooine and how he’d made the same face the first time he saw her in the Jedi Temple. Anakin coming back from his first solo run with half his back sliced open and a silence in the Force that lingered for days after what he’d seen. Seeing Ben and Anakin crumpled on the ground in that thrice damned hanger and feeling the bond ripped to pieces. Her grief for her own loss of the Force during those weeks. Her grief for her sons’ suffering. Her grief for another massive group of beings who had no choice in their lives. She took all these things, watched them pass her by and let the winds of the Force soothe the wounds each one left.

Every fear, every fresh trauma, all of it, she felt again and settled it into her mind. The Dark roiled, a sandstorm tearing away the badly healed pieces that she’d made do with because she didn’t have the time to sort it out. The Light came in, a balm, cooling it all down and draining the pain from it all. When it was all done, the dune was gone. Shmi felt lighter than she had even before this had all started. She could feel her own emotions, strong and separate from the emotions of other people. She felt the Force flowing through her, pulsing with every beat of her heart and rushing with every breath she took. She glided on the feeling, weightless.

When she opened her eyes there was an amber crystal in the palm of her hand, warm to the touch; and she let herself cry.

Cin vhetin.

///

Fives peered around the corner, ears perked for longnecks. He tried to stretch out the way General Ti kept telling him to, but it felt like one of those heavy stretch bands from resistance training was wrapped around his head. He shook his head and darted down the hallway, feet light on the floor. Nothing. 782 and 4040 had said they would cover for him before he left. But there were a lot of other brothers around and Dogma would definitely report Fives’ entire squad if he found out what was going on. So he had to be careful.

Being able to stretch out or not, there was something about that sense in the pit of Fives’ gut. The feel of it, the texture of it had changed suddenly in the middle of the day. It felt kind of like it had when the rumors about jetiise had circulated through the brothers. There was already scuttlebutt about the “Weird General” being back again, and General Ti had said something about a demonstration of a rarer type of Force Technique. Fives had a weird feeling about whatever he was sneaking towards, but that same sense said this was the smart thing to do. Let it never be said that Fives is an ani di’kut.

He reached the room General Ti had told him to report to and he tried again. He closed his eyes, listened to his breathing, felt the blood in his veins, drew on that sense in his gut and waved a hand in front of the door. It clunked open and he grinned and walked in, careful to stick to the shadows until he knew exactly who was in the room. He wasn’t that good at guessing who people were without seeing them the way General Ti and the rest of the jetiise seemed to be able to.

But there was General Ti, montrals high above her head. Fives knew that she was tracking him. He could feel it. It was the weirdest thing about all of this, really. There were these reminders from time to time that General Ti was evolved from a long line of very successful carnivorous hunters. The other being in the room was a humanoid man with yellow markings on his face, dreadlocks, and a lightsaber on his belt. Another General then. Fives stepped out of the shadows, squaring his shoulders and checking the crystal General Ti gave him.

“Ah, Fives, excellent timing.” General Ti’s voice was as smooth and calm as always. Fives could feel the placidity in the room from the door.

“Yes sir.” Fives stood at attention across from them. The other General was looking over him and Five resisted the urge to do the same. That wasn’t how this worked, no matter what General Ti or 4040 had to say about it.

“Vos.” General Ti sounded almost exasperated. Fives had never heard that tone in her voice before. Weird.

“It’s just strange. I know we missed it with Rex, but feeling it right in front of my face. You’re something else, Fives.” He had a strange smile on his face.

“Fives, this is Master Vos. He’s a tracker for the Jedi Order and he possesses a unique skill that I wanted him to demonstrate for you.” General Ti was back to sounding as relaxed and placid as she always did.

Fives looked at General Vos. So this was the jetii who’d gotten the longnecks into a tizzy. The scuttlebutt said that he’d found the medbay they’d used for Hibir, done some kind of Force poodoo, and found out something the longnecks didn’t want them to know. The Dominoes reaped benefits of 782’s sort-of friendship with 99 in the form of rumors. And that had been a huge one, right after Rex deserting because he was Force Sensitive. General Vos’s eyes felt a little bit like General Ti’s; almost like he could see Fives’ entire soul just by looking at him. Maybe that was a Force thing. Or a Jedi thing.

“Good to meet you, General Vos, sir.”

“No, no; none of that General stuff. I’m not in charge of anything. You’re all so strict with that; loosen up a little. It’ll do you good. Anyway, what am I looking at, Master Ti?”

“I managed to find this while I was walking the facility the other day.” General Ti pulled a datastick out of one of her robe pockets and handed it to Vos. “Fives, I want you to try and observe the Force around Vos while he uses psychometry. I myself do not have that gift, and neither do you; but it is always beneficial to know what different techniques feel like in the Force when they are being practiced.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Fives reached for those feelings in his gut, and it was like the resistance band in his head disappeared. All of the sudden the sensations were immediate, right in his face like words on a piece of flimsi. He could _feel_ General Ti’s calm, peaceful presence spreading through the room and Vos’ strange crackling sort of energy radiating off of him in random bursts of lightning strikes. It was the most natural thing in the world. And just like every other time he’d done it, Fives couldn’t understand how he’d managed to even walk in a straight line without this.

“Damn! He’s a bright son of a Hutt when he’s plugged in,” Vos said. Fives looked him over, new dimensions from the Force adding a depth he hadn’t noticed before. Vos felt darker then General Ti somehow. Then again, pretty much everyone felt darker than General Ti, including Fives himself. Maybe that was the whole point.

Vos took the datastick from General Ti and Fives felt him draw on the Force. The Jedi took off a glove and the Force felt like it jolted in an electrical arc from the datastick into Vos’ fingers. The whole thing probably only took a few seconds, but it felt like all three of them were suspended in time. Vos came out of it with a full body twitch and he stared at the datastick like it had fangs.

“I’m sorry to cut this short, Master Ti; but I have to go make a call. Right now.” Vos rushed off without another word.

“What did you feel, cadet?” General Ti turned towards Fives fully.

“I could feel the Force flowing from the datastick to Vos. What was he doing?”

“Psychometry allows the practitioner to garner the memories of the people who’ve touched an object by using the Force to read the object. Vos is currently one of the most gifted in the Order when it comes to psychometry. It was why he was sent here in the first place.”

“Is it about Hibir?” Fives wasn’t sure what the jetiise were trying to find out. They could just ask the vode and they’d find out more than they ever would by just hoping to come across something. The longnecks were too careful for that to work.

“Unfortunately. It is a serious matter that requires strong, immediate action. However, that is not what our lesson will be about today. You do not do well with stationary meditation, so today I am going to show you how to use katas for moving meditation. Eventually, you will need to be able to perform stationary meditation. But as a beginner, it is important that you simply learn what it feels like to be properly connected to the Force.”

Fives settled in for something he was sure was going to make him feel like a pile of goo by the time they were done. He couldn’t wait.

///

Rex sat against the side of the Buurenaar Cabur, drifting on the currents of the Force around him. The Abiik-Kemirs had all scattered as soon as the airlock had opened, following the riptide waves Rex could feel pulling at him from all sides. Ejasa, Ben, and Silas had all said, in their own way, that he was welcome to try and find a crystal if he wanted to. The idea of having a lightsaber in his hand made Rex feel _right_ in some indefinable way. But the flash training still kicked back against the idea like a blow to the stomach. The dissonance of it made him feel physically sick. So he stayed, drawing on the hundreds of Wells he could feel all around him.

The Wells of Light made his entire body feel electrified, energy pouring through every pore and warming him up from the inside out. The Wells of Dark battered at him like tsunamis waves, pushing and pulling him along different directions and tracks that stretched as far as he could sense. There was a feeling of power from the Dark Wells, almost like he was made to control it. Like it was his somehow in a way that was a little more distant with the Light.

He felt both twisting around him and it was like his mind was being held, enveloped by this immense power, inseparable from each other and him. He was so far separated that his body, affected as it was, barely even registered in the face of it all. He saw a being, a humanoid man, red eyed, pale, and staring at him like he’d never seen a person before. Rex felt Darkness radiating from the being in waves like all the Dark Wells had combined together into this being in front of him. They stared at each other, eyes locked for an eternity before the being spoke, his voice echoing and reverberating around Rex like it was part of the Force itself.

“I can sense your fear, your anger. But you refuse the tool that could give you power. What are you afraid of, mortal?”

Rex couldn’t speak. His voice felt far away in the drifts of the Force around him.

“It is enough that he is afraid, brother.” The voice was feminine and dripped Light the same way the being in front of Rex oozed Dark.

“But he is one of mine, sister. And mine are not to be beaten by something as basal and trivial as fear. So I ask, mortal, what are you afraid of? Those pathetic beings are not even a _fraction_ of what you could become. One of those crude implements is only the first step, but it is your birthright, as is the power around us.”

“He means to say that the Force is the birthright of anyone who can reach it. You are made to be a part of something greater than yourself, but it was not the war that you were taught was your purpose. You were made to be part of the Force. You were made to lead. You may be his, but your purpose is aligned with me.” The feminine voice spoke again and Rex felt the Light wrapping around him, filling his lungs with every breath.

“Move past your fear. Pay attention to what made you disobey in the first place. That will guide you to what you were made for. In the meantime, put together one of those crude implements with this. It is my gift to the first of mine to seek me out in this new age. Wield it well.”

Rex came out of it on his knees, his right hand clenched around something hard enough to draw blood. He felt himself shaking, every muscle shivering like he’d gone outside on an ice planet in nothing but his blacks. He felt someone’s presence suffused through the Force next to him, but he couldn’t tell who until he looked. Silas. Some corner in the cobwebbed corners of Rex’s mind registered that it was weird that he’d come back already. The sunlight hadn’t changed enough for it to have been more than an hour and Ejasa had implied that gathering a crystal could take all day.

There was suddenly a hand on his shoulder and a voice that Rex couldn’t quite make sense of. He got his arms to cooperate with him and looked at the thing that was clenched in his hand. A red purple crystal the color of that dark wine on Naboo, smooth sides that looked like it was foggy inside. It was warm in his palm and he felt like some of his blood was somewhere inside of that crystal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Demagolka-War Criminal, a Real Life Monster  
> Cin Vhetin-Fresh Start, Clean Slate  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Ani-Complete  
> Di’kut-Idiot  
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings
> 
> Writing everyone's process involved some musical intervention. Poor Obi-Wan needs so many hugs it's not even funny. Everyone in this fic needs hugs and a metric ton of blankets really. I'm not sure if I'll go into the technical parts of the lightsaber construction too much, but there will be meditation on the Kyber crystals. Writing Fives pre-Rishi is a little difficult, but I think he's doing okay for now. I'm glad to be back with this again! Side note: given Shmi's dialogue in Attack of the Clones, I find the fact that Anakin's nickname in canon means 'complete' in Mando'a interesting in a very sad way.


	3. Pilots Are Terrible Role Models

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which stealth is key

“We’ll be coordinating with the 41st Legion under General Unduli. She reported a skirmish with the blockade at 21:45 Standard Senate Time last cycle. She has also reported the presence of an Admiral Trench. Our mission is to use the stealth ship on board the Negotiator to deliver relief supplies to Senator Bail Organa on the ground. We are not, I repeat, not, to engage the enemy. Our mission is relief only. General Unduli will engage and keep the enemy’s attention while we use the stealth ship to slip past the blockade’s defenses. While General Unduli is engaging the enemy, she has full control over the Negotiator. Captain Stacks will remain on board the Negotiator along with Commander Tano. If any of you have any questions, now is the time to ask.”

Master Qui-Gon’s voice was flat and his eyes were so tired. When they’d first launched in the Negotiator she’d tried to stick close, be helpful, do what she was supposed to do. But it just seemed to make Master Qui-Gon worse. There weren’t any other padawans she could ask either. She was the only padawan. She’d been the only padawan around before, but never when Master Qui-Gon was distant like this. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said he was depressed or something. But it felt like it was more than that.

She glanced at Stacks again. His helmet had a picture of some kind of monster on it in the orange paint the 212th had taken to using. She could sense a wariness in his presence in the Force. Something about this assignment was making him uneasy. Come to think of it, all of the men felt uneasy. It made a sort of sense. After all, they didn’t know her or Master Qui-Gon very well. And Admiral Yularen really was intimidating. Not to mention, Torrent had been the company “guarding” the Abiik-Kemirs. They’d lost a brother to that. Still, it was hard to feel like they could do this when all of them felt so doubtful in the Force. But Ahsoka was good. She drew on the Light, just like she was supposed to and tried to smooth over the jagged edges of doubt and the beginning tendrils of anxiety in the little group. She wasn’t sure she was doing it right, but it was what felt like the right thing to do. Anyway, at least the Stealth crew felt a little calmer, even if she could still feel the tension radiating off of Cody and Stacks.

Master Qui-Gon gave her an approving tap through the Force and he was giving her the ‘I’m doing the Jedi version of smiling’ when she looked up. She nodded and settled in at Stacks’ side. Nobody had asked any questions, but as soon as everyone was dismissed she saw Admiral Yularen chase after Master Qui-Gon. Ahsoka turned to Stacks.

“So, are we waiting for Master Unduli to brief us?”

He looked down at her. “I believe so, Commander; our orders are to be the command crew.”

“Well, us and Admiral Yularen. I don’t think he’ll be sticking around, though.” Ahsoka just knew Yularen was going to be on that stealth ship. One way or another.

“Sir?”

“Just a Force thing.”

“Right, sir.” He started like he wanted to ask a question.

“You can ask if you want, Stacks.”

“With due respect, sir, but that is Jedi business. Isn’t it?” He sounded as uncomfortable as he felt in the Force.

“Not really. It’s just a feeling,” Ahsoka said, walking closer to the holotable.

“Right.”

“This Trench guy sounded like serious business.” He’d gotten the better of Master Unduli.

“Well, we had a whole section on him in the education ‘net on Kamino. We had to learn a lot of his tactics. He’s supposed to be dead. If he’s not, it could mean that this whole mission is at risk.”

“He’s supposed to be dead?”

“Admiral Yularen’s battle with him ended with him supposedly blowing up with his ship. He _is_ a Harch, though; so it’s entirely possible that it’s the same being.”

“What was so special about him?” Ahsoka felt a shiver of a warning crawling across her spine, but she couldn’t figure out which part it was about.

“Well, aside from expert and brutal tactics, he managed to destroy cloaking ships, whether they were cloaked or not. It was a huge uproar. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though, Commander. The ships he destroyed were cruisers. Nowhere near as small as the one General Jinn and the crew will be flying.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be okay. Master Qui-Gon’s always about following the Force anyway. He’ll get a warning if this Trench guy tries to pull anything.”

Ahsoka wasn’t at all sure about that. As she stood at the holotable waiting for the call from Master Unduli, she couldn’t help but try to pull at the warning. But nothing more concrete came through the Force other than a sense of ‘something is going to happen today’. Vague warnings from the Force were the worst.

///

The entire stealth crew was already there when Qui-Gon arrived with Yularen. Cody stood out, white armor in sharp contrast with the black armor the flight crew were wearing, despite the common theme of the orange paint. Qui-Gon felt the nerves stirring up dust in the Force, the Light clouded with feather-light particles of Dark that brushed against his senses as he drew up to the ship. Qui-Gon felt Cody’s sharp spike of surprise before it disappeared under a current of professionalism. Standard non-Force shield training indeed. That was another thing to add to the list for Shaak to look into.

“Everyone’s prepared, General Jinn. Unfortunately one of the gunners was injured, but Spark can do whatever this mission requires.”

“Alright, Commander. The admiral is going to be joining us for the ride. Let’s be off, Senator Organa needs these supplies as soon as possible.”

Cody nodded and made a sharp motion at the command crew before stepping onto the ship himself. Qui-Gon took a moment to feel out all of the men on the ship. Nerves, yes, but there was more. An undercurrent of drive and sense of order that only came from the kind of conditioning Qui-Gon knew they’d been through. He wasn’t very concerned about the mission being completed. He felt that it would happen. But there was something about this that felt like it wouldn’t be as easy as command had implied; and the men knew that as well as Qui-Gon did. He stepped in and the dark, claustrophobic interior felt like a tomb around him. The red lights were not helping with that impression.

The pit crew sat, preparing at their individual displays and Qui-Gon heard who he assumed was Blackout briefing Spark about what he was going to do. The rest of the gunners were already at their stations. It was all a smooth operation that felt like it could run with or without him there. Once again, he had to wonder why the Order felt it was appropriate to use these men like this. But if they were going to do that, why did they feel the need to place someone like himself in charge of them? Qui-Gon knew what he was capable of, and leading an attack battalion was not part of his skill set, even if he felt like it was right. And the Force was very much saying that this was not the right thing to do. Even without the ordered structure of them all and how little individuality they were allowed, something just felt off. And he couldn’t figure out what it was. That feeling only got stronger with the way Cody felt when certain things came up; not the least of which being questions Qui-Gon had asked about Kamino. He got to the cramped cockpit and took his place behind Ringo.

“We’re ready to take off as soon as General Unduli gives the all clear, sir,” Ringo said nodding sharply at Qui-Gon before motioning at Blitz to do something. Qui-Gon nodded back, looking over the displays. This was when he could’ve stood to have Ahsoka along. Growing up with Plo’s love of piloting had left his padawan with a much better understanding of this all than Qui-Gon could hope to achieve. It was better that she stayed on the Negotiator, though. As much danger as it might be in, it wasn’t anywhere near what they were going to have to do to get through the blockade.

“Stealth ship, this is the Tranquility. We have engaged the enemy and you are clear for takeoff.” A clone’s voice came over the comm. Ringo looked back at Qui-Gon for confirmation before he turned back to the controls.

“Alright, Blitz. Go.”

The ship lifted off so smoothly Qui-Gon almost didn’t feel it. He stretched out, searching for something that he couldn’t quite reach as the cloak activated. The Force was trying to lead them to something, but he couldn’t quite hear it well enough to tell what that could be. The battle was a mess of blue and red turbo blasts, the energy of them crackling in the void of space. He felt the nerves in their ship ratchet up another notch until it was clear Trench’s forces hadn’t noticed them. Yet.

They hadn’t gotten very far past the blockade before Krayt sounded the alarm. “We’ve got fighters scrambling from the Invincible, sir.”

Qui-Gon jumped in. Whatever the warning from the Force was about, this took precedence. “Have they seen us?”

“Unclear, sir.”

“What are our options?”

“We have to uncloak to use our weapons, sir. We have flares, two dual laser canon turrets, and four photon torpedo launchers,” Blackout said.

“If we are to respond, we’ll need to do it quickly.” Yularen’s voice was surprisingly steady.

“Fighters are thirty seconds out and closing.” Krayt’s presence was as solid as his voice.

Qui-Gon reached for the Force.

“What are your orders, sir?” Cody was the one to ask.

“Stay cloaked. It’s imperative that we stay hidden. I don’t sense any danger for us from those fighters.” Qui-Gon felt the ripple of discomfort go through the crew; but none of them projected anywhere near as much of that as Yularen. Yet another falling Qui-Gon was discovering: the complete mystification of the Force to the point that it wasn’t accessible to ordinary people. Still, his orders were followed and the fighters went right past them.

“Stealth ship, this is the Tranquility. We’re getting reports of fighters headed towards Senator Organa’s station on the surface. What is your status?”

“Tranquility, everything is proceeding as planned. We have not been noticed. Is there any chance anyone of the Destroyers can do something about those fighters?” Qui-Gon already had a feeling what the answer was going to be.

“No sir. No chance. Trench has us all occupied.” The clone cut off suddenly. Qui-Gon felt a shift in the Force and a sense of dread swept through him no matter how hard he drew on the Light.

The clone came back on. “Um. General Jinn, sir. The Negotiator is reporting that Commander Tano scrambled with a squad of fighters.”

It was funny; Qui-Gon didn’t remember the cockpit having this ringing noise in it before.

///

“Alright boys, check in and form up on me. We’re gonna split their focus, keep the rest of their fighters engaged while Master Qui-Gon gets those supplies to the command center on the surface.” Ahsoka felt better than she had since the Corvette had left the Negotiator’s dock. The void of space hummed and she felt the clones in their ships, flares of life signatures all around her. The turbolaser fire felt like electrical storms flying past the squad. Nine voices all checked in and she felt for them all.

“Okay, standard arrowhead attack formation. You know what to do.” She’d seen this a million times from classes to listening to pilots talking in the Temple. She could do this.

“Yes sir.”

The squad flew in a tight formation on Ahsoka’s tail and they cut through, shooting past and around the turbolaser fire. Ahsoka reached into the Force, feeling it guide her hands as the fire kept coming. She could see the fighters that were about to launch like they were right in front of her. The comm went off and Ahsoka silenced it. Commander Gree had already yelled at her for Master Unduli. They had work to do.

“We’ve got fighters incoming.” She said, making sure to keep connected to everything happening around her.

“We’ve got them on our screens, Commander.”

“Get ready R4.”

She twisted, to get most of the fighters’ attention on her own ship. Her smirk was more of a baring of fangs as she let loose a barrage of laser blasts that took out two of the fighters. She flew through the fire, more of the droid fighters falling under the squad’s guns. She dove hard, cutting across right towards the fighters heading towards the planet, keeping a line out for the signatures that marked where the Corvette was. She felt Master Qui-Gon, presence bright with something or other that she didn’t have the brainpower to register. She was going to be in trouble.

It was worth it.

“More fighters incoming. Knock them over. Don’t let them get their programming on straight.” Nine answering confirmations, and she pinwheeled back towards the heavy cruisers. The Invincible sat, shields still raised. If they launched anything, they’d have to take those down. Master Unduli could get a shot if Ahsoka could just get them to take down the shields.

“Oddball and Matchstick I want you with me. Blues two through eight, keep the fighters occupied, stay here, don’t get any closer to the planet. You don’t know where the Corvette is. Broadside, you’re in charge.”

“Yes sir.”

“What’s the plan, sir?” Oddball was already following her as he asked.

“We’re going to force Trench to take down those shields so Master Unduli can get a shot. Get in close, keep moving, force him to launch something to get us off of him. I know those shields; if he wants to launch anything more than what he’s got right now, he has to take them down and let them cycle back up.”

“We’re right behind you sir.” That was Matchstick.

She felt them pull in to flank her as they broke away in a tight turn towards the Invincible. She drew the Light, pushing her senses as far as they would go. She could feel where the turbo blasts were going and pulled right into the blind spot, Oddball and Matchstick mirroring her. The red whizzed by and Ahsoka heard the hum of a lightsaber, a phantom buzz of movement in her montrals. She gritted her teeth and stuck it out, pulling the Force around her like a blanket. She could almost hear Master Qui-Gon telling her to let it out into the Force. A sucked in breath that felt like a punch and another rush of Light and the moment broke.

She fired, bolts glancing off the shields harmlessly, Oddball and Matchstick not getting anything more substantial either. That wasn’t the point anyway. R4 warbled as she spun under anther laser spread. She felt a jolt go through her ship. Torpedos. What the Sith hells?!

///

“We’ve got a torpedo barrage incoming from one of the ships, closing fast, fifteen seconds.”

Qui-Gon was right behind Krayt, staring at the display.

“Twelve seconds for cloaking.” Aiwha was somehow the calmest person on the ship.

“Ten seconds.”

“Fire flares, roll down, and cloak as soon as we’re able.” Qui-Gon ordered. He could feel the flare of confusion from Ahsoka and the rest of the squad. One of the fighters had already gone up, the life inside snuffed out like a candle.

The pit crew and gunners followed, jumping to in a fraction of a fraction of a second. Qui-Gon heard the clunk of the flares deploying and held onto the chair as the ship dove down. The photon torpedos hadn’t done much damage, but it’d distracted the fighters heading towards Ahsoka from one of the ships on the perimeter and gotten them into the rest of the squad’s crosshairs. That would have to be enough for the moment. The ship jolted as the torpedos exploded on the flares and the Force gave another shout of warning.

“Dive, now!” Qui-Gon shouted alongside the Force.

The ship went down, stars spinning in a dizzying arc against the black void of space and the hulking mass of the planet. Qui-Gon clung to the chair he’d been leaning on even harder and did his best to level everything out for the rest of the men. They evened out, a spread of laser fire going by a hair’s breadth above them right where’d they’d just been. Everything went so quiet, Qui-Gon could hear his heartbeat in his ears. What in the nine Corellian _Hells_ was Ahsoka doing outside? He was going to have questions for Captain Stacks when they got back to the ship.

“Sir, we’ve got an incoming transmission from the Invincible,” said Stardust, running up to the cockpit.

“Put it up on the display.” The Harch appeared.

“Hello, ugly.” Qui-Gon couldn’t tell which of the men said that, but apparently Cody could if the glare that wasn’t at all mitigated by the helmet was anything to go by.

“I am Admiral Trench. If you are listening, _Jedi_ , you’ve made a bold move! And a grave mistake. I appreciate your attempts to face me, ship to ship, to play this little… _game_. The fighters were an inspired touch. You have an impressive new vessel. But I warn you, I’ve dealt with its kind before. Your technology won’t save you. Your friends on the surface will perish as a result of your failure. Christophsis and all her resources will join the Separatist Alliance. Turn back now and retreat while you can, or I will be your doom.”

The display went dark and Qui-Gon could hear his heartbeat in his ears again.

“I’ve seen it before, General Jinn. He’s found cruisers with cloaking devices not unlike this one,” Yularen said, looking over at Qui-Gon.

“And it was always cruisers before. Most ships this small couldn’t support a cloaking device, correct?”

“Yes, this ship is the first of its kind.”

Then there was only one person to ask. “Brandy!”

“Yes sir!” The man came running up to the cockpit as soon as Qui-Gon called.

“What do you think allows him to track a cloaked ship?” Qui-Gon turned towards Brandy, eyeing the different renditions of nose art painted on his armor.

“My best guess is that he’s tracking the magnetic signature of this ship, sir. Impossible to cloak, impossible to change, and easy to track once you know what you’re looking for. All he would need was a few seconds with us uncloaked and a good scanner.”

“Stardust, contact the Tranquility and Commander Tano. We need to coordinate this. As soon as he has us we can use whatever strike he’ll launch against him.”

“Yes sir!”

“Blackout, Spark, keep an eye on our weapons and coordinate with Brandy and Aiwha. If we’re going on the offensive, we need to ensure we can get power where we need it, when we need it.”

“Yes sir!”

“General, I’ve got General Unduli on the line. I can’t raise the Commander.”

Qui-Gon’s chest clenched until he felt along the bond. Still strong and steady. He pushed over a _Pay attention and answer your comm!_ as loudly as he could and he felt her recoil. There would be time for apologies after he was done making her go through every single kata and Force Skill exercise in his arsenal and a few from Shaak and Plo as well.

“This is Ahsoka, reading you loud and clear, stealth ship!”

“We need to coordinate our attacks-” Qui-Gon began.

“Master, if we can get him to launch torpedos from the Invincible he’ll be forced to lower his shields! We could get a shot straight at the bridge and take him down!”

“Padawan Tano, if your plan was to have one of the Destroyers take that window, you needed to coordinate with me _before_ you launched any kind of attack,” Luminara said, voice as close to irate as she got. Qui-Gon couldn’t help but sympathize at the moment.

“I know, Master Unduli, and I’m sorry. But that’s the best plan!”

“As much as I do not agree with what you’ve chosen to do, Ahsoka, you are correct. The admiral is guaranteed to attempt to fire on this ship. We will need to deal with the torpedos, but any one of the Destroyers should be able to hit the Invincible’s bridge _before_ the shields cycle back up if we time it correctly.”

“The Tranquility will take the shot. Everyone else is too far away for it to work,” said Luminara, voice resigned. “Blue Squadron will take care of the remaining hyenas. Ahsoka, you, Blue Leader, and Blue One will take care of the torpedos then join your Master on the surface when he delivers the supplies.”

“Yes, Master Unduli.”

“Master Jinn, send a blip over the comms when you’re ready to begin. We’ll fire on your mark.”

“Understood.”

The comm went dead again and Qui-Gon gave himself two breaths before he started.

“Blackout, get the torpedos ready to fire again. Aiwha, sit on the shields. We’re going to fire and re-cloak as quickly as possible.”

“Yes sir!” Two voices answered in tandem.

Qui-Gon felt the nerves crawling up his throat and threatening to make his hands shake. He drew as deeply on the Force as he dared and forced it back. Now wasn’t anywhere near the time to deal with all of that.

“Engineering standing by!”

“Communications standing by!”

“Gunners standing by!”

“Sensors standing by!”

“Navigation standing by!”

Qui-Gon allowed himself one more breath.

“Blip the comm and fire!”

///

Ahsoka streaked towards the Corvette, seeing the torpedos cutting their way towards it and feeling the torpedos from the Tranquility closing in from behind. She opened the throttle as far is it would go and reached into the Force. She could feel the lives on the Corvette, Oddball and Matchstick right by her sides, the other five left of the squad behind them darting around after the Seppie fighters, and those Sith damned torpedos right ahead of her, almost in range. She couldn’t hear anything, she didn’t feel the ship jolt when the Invincible was hit, she couldn’t see anything but the torpedos.

Then, it _clicked_ and she fired on the torpedos, tiny adjustments moving the guns exactly where they needed to go.

The torpedos went up in a huge fireball and the Corvette sailed on forward like nothing had happened at all.

She realized she was gasping for air as she pulled up, slowing way down to the Corvette’s speed to escort it down. She heard Oddball, Matchstick, and Broadside cheering in her comm. She wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying. Her sense of the Force was shattered like glass and cut the same.

“R4, you’re in charge the rest of the way down. Okay buddy?” Her voice was so shaky. She couldn’t find the energy to be embarrassed. R4 whistled his affirmative anyway and the controls switched over. She leaned back in her seat with an audible thump. Master Plo had never said how exhausted flying like that was. None of them had.

Suddenly all she wanted was to curl up and sleep.

“Are you alright, Commander?” Oddball’s voice was awkward. She didn’t think that was even possible for him.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just a lot of Force at once. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

She could feel the concern from all sides, floods from Master Qui-Gon, drifts from Oddball and Matchstick, even little breezes from Master Unduli.

The trip down passed in a haze. She didn’t even feel the slight jolt of the landing. She just rolled out of the cockpit and leaned against the Aethersprite as Christophsisians and clones ran to and from the Corvette with supplies. She held onto her arm, shoulder hunched, and tried to follow one of the breathing exercises that were seared into her brain. Her body seemed to follow it by rote, but her mind still wouldn’t stop tripping over nothing. Every little thought got interrupted almost as soon as it started.

“Here sir.”

There was a canteen in her face. She reached up and took it. Her hands still felt numb.

“I remember when I first got onto that shuttle off of Geonosis, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. We’d trained our whole lives for it, but nothing had really prepared us for that clusterkriff. I was still giving orders, making sure that everyone was doing what they needed to. I had work to do. But my hands were shaking and all I wanted was water. I couldn’t get enough water.” She dimly registered that Cody was the one talking to her.

“Then I walked into the little mess, and Waxer and Boil were telling this story. They must’ve had every brother on the shuttle there, and they were all _laughing_. It was the best thing I’d ever heard. And I realized that everything we’d done, everything we’d just been through. We’d been changed. But we were on the other side and we’d _passed_ it. I saw the looks on their faces, I saw how close everyone was drawing together, and I knew that we’d pull through. I knew that I’d pull through. I knew that we’d be able to do this. It wasn’t the training, the drills, or any of that stuff that was going to pull us through. It was that, right there. What I saw in that tiny little mess on that shuttle. It was brothers _laughing_ in the face of everything those bugs tried.

“I don’t know what the Jedi do that would be like that. But whatever it is, you need to find your anchor. Before Geonosis, I would’ve said that everything I did, I did for duty. After seeing that, everything I do, I do for my brothers. Everything I do, I do so that as many of my brothers as possible make it to the other side still able to connect like that. War changes you. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if the reasons you do things change with you. Actually, I’d say that unless those reasons evolve with you, you’ll sink with the pressure.”

He leaned against the Aethersprite, helmet in his hand, eyes scanning the horizon as he spoke.

“Rex was right about a lot of things. But I think the biggest one was being able to adapt. Whatever else anyone says, whatever mistakes you made today, you kept those fighters from getting through to the command center here. You saved _lives_ today. And you didn’t hear it from me, but that was a damned good shot, Commander Tano.”

And with that, his helmet was back on his head, and he was coordinating his brothers like he’d never even been there. The only thing that told her he had was the canteen clutched in her fingers.

///

“What the kriff, vod.”

“I know.”

“What the _kriff_ , vod!”

“I’m sorry! One second she was there, and then she was running off yelling about having an idea. By the time I caught up, she already had Blue Squadron scrambling. She’s damned _fast_ ori’vod!”

Stacks’ eyes were wide and he still looked panicked. Cody couldn’t even be too angry with him either. Really, the Commander technically outranked him. But the horrified look on Jinn’s face and the empty look on Tano’s were floating behind his eyes and all he could see was the dead look on Rex’s face after Geonosis and the ghosts of the tremors through Cody’s hands that hadn’t stopped for what felt like days. Cody felt the pinch of the beginning of a headache behind his scarred eye and he sighed.

“I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to do for you when General Jinn gets back.” And how bitter the words tasted. Cody almost gagged on them.

“I know. I’m…whatever he does, it’s not your fault, ori’vod.”

Cody shook his head and looked away from the holoprojector for a few seconds.

“Coric’s got news about Bins.”

A shot of adrenaline kicked through Cody’s body and he was wide awake again.

“What happened?”

“He found a tumor, just like Rex said. He took it out and Bins is doing just fine. Dini’la vod is already trying to get up and start slicing the damned thing. Driving Coric crazy like usual. Coric says it doesn’t look like any naturally occurring tumor he’s ever seen and he wants to get us in for scans as soon as possible to see if we have it too.”

Cody’s knees felt weak. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed Rex or that he thought Coric was going to screw up. But just the thought about what that thing could be. Cody wasn’t an idiot. He remembered the holos of Hibir. He remembered the parts of the facility they weren’t supposed to go to. He knew every rumor about what that creepy room with the tesseracts and the chair that had ever circulated through the brothers’ rumor mill. He felt his hair stand on end at the thought of the possibilities something like that could mean. The older brothers, the really old ones that had dim memories of Hibir said that he’d looked dead inside. That every room he was in felt cold for hours, even after he left.

“As soon as Coric says it’s alright, get Bins slicing, Stacks. If that thing is like the system they used with Hibir, then every brother is a time bomb; and we need to know what they’re going to make us do if we don’t get them out.”

Stacks’ eyes hardened and he gave a sharp salute.

Manda preserve them all, Ben was _right_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Ori’vod-Older Brother/Sibling  
> Dini’la-Insane  
> Manda-Heaven
> 
> Any Dialogue from the Clone Wars doesn’t belong to me. I’m changing canon. Cody was on Geonosis. Given what I’ve done with the timeline (what I could figure out of the timeline anyway) it makes more sense that he would’ve been on Geonosis than him not being there. Even if Cody got a paycheck, it wouldn’t be big enough for all the things he has to keep together here, let’s be real. We’ve had first contact with the actual canon of the show as well! There are a few things I really want in here, but I felt like that last time, and the story kind of got away from me. So, we’ll see what happens with all of this.


	4. Force Communcation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a lot of talking

Anakin stretched out his arm and did not wince at the slight pop or anything else that definitely didn’t happen. The fine tremor going through was just another thing he was going to have to get through. It was going to be fine. At least nothing was going to scar this time. That was good. For everyone involved. He put his arm down, looked at it, and sighed. Visibly atrophied muscle. Great. The muscles in his upper back and across his shoulders wouldn’t stop pinching, but that wasn’t so bad. It was actually pretty familiar. He was more worried about the drop in agility and flexibility. That he couldn’t fix until he was done with the PT part of the treatment. He put the weight down and rolled his neck. The temptation to just do some katas or acrobatics was agonizing, but the thought of winding up flat on his face was worse. Barely. He sighed and left the training room.

Not finding a crystal had been a bit of a tell. He was aware that even in this state, it wasn’t like he was defenseless. But the combination of not having a ‘saber on him and not being able to fight properly made him feel naked. The Force was still muddy too. It’d been long enough that he was basically back to full strength. The visual aspect of it hadn’t settled down yet, though; and it would go from barely there at all to completely blinding in fractions of a second unless he was meditating. Without that part working the way it was supposed to, it was difficult for him to figure out what he was supposed to be looking at. He knew that they were heading into something that was important, but he couldn’t tell how. He also knew that heading to Tatooine was the right move, but not why. Usually if the Force was this clear about something, he'd at least have a vague concept of one of those things.

The visions were the worst part by far. Ever since he’d woken back up, he hadn’t managed more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time. It was near constant every time he tried to sleep at all. He saw Rex’s brothers firing on what looked like Jedi for some reason. He saw Dooku planning something or other with some Zabrak somewhere covered in green mist. The most disturbing one was why he wasn’t even trying to pretend to sleep in the middle of the night cycle. All of the series of visions ended the same way: this gnarled, shrouded figure that oozed the oily ‘toomuchtoomuchtoomuch’ of someone who’d drank the Darkest parts of the Force in some fancy room. They’d stare out of a window over a city, a red gold sunset reflecting off of the buildings. And even though they never once turned to face him, he felt like someone’s eyes were stripping him down to the bone until the vision was over.

Someone was watching them while they were on Coruscant. That he was sure of. It wasn’t the Jedi, and it wasn’t just some politician either. It was someone deep and Dark and they’d left an impression. It wasn’t Dooku either. As much as Anakin _really_ wanted to tear that demagolka apart with his bare hands, he didn’t have the same sort of presence as this being did. Maybe it was the Sith master everyone was so worried about. He couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever it was, they’d been involved in what happened to Ben.

He only realized that he was standing outside the shop room when he heard a soft Mando’a curse. His Buir sat at the table, ‘saber parts scattered around, crystal sitting at the edge. It was one of the increasingly rare times her mask was off. She felt less exhausted in the Force than she had since they’d landed on Coruscant the first time, and it showed on her face. He sat on the floor next to the bench, grabbing the scraps from one of the broken concussors to mess with. She sent a small greeting through the bond, a hint of a smile and a hug, the echos of it in her eyes if he’d looked.

He sat like that, letting his brain work while his hands took apart the concussor on autopilot. He noted the slight weakness in his right wrist. Another thing that would have to be fixed. The tiny parts were around him in a rainbow, laid out with the Force around them in lazy, cottony blankets that glowed dimly in the corners of his vision. The ribbony spiderwebs of the dark were a little more visible. They’d been stronger since Rex had whatever vision he’d had. It wasn’t enough to be concerned about a bad Fall, but there had been no mistaking the threads of gold in the man’s eyes when he’d come out of it. He’d never had the chance to actually see what the Dark eyes looked like. The results of keeping their faces covered for eleven years were showing up in some strange places lately.

“You should take it easy with your wrist, An’ika,” Buir said. He looked up and her eyes were on him. How out of it was he that he hadn’t noticed the shift in the room?

“It’s fine. Just muscle weakness. I’m good, Buir; really.” He took off his own mask and laid it out of the way.

He hated the look on her face. It’d been there way too many times the last couple of years. But he couldn’t just stop, not when he could _feel_ that this was what he was made for. Liberation, protection, fighting for other people.

“I know. It’s not as bad as it seemed, but still. It’s already taken longer than it should have. There’s no reason to push so hard it can’t heal anymore.” She was looking at the scattered pieces that would make up her new ‘saber again.

She used to push for the sake of it not being as painful. The first solo run he’d done had kind of killed that argument for a while. He shifted, feeling the phantom pain in the scar on his back. Him being back on his feet and fighting as soon as he could had effectively stripped any power that argument held. Her and Ben doing the same thing had squashed whatever spark it still had.

“It’ll be fine. I’m doing the PT like the medidroid said. It’s just…slow. Have you had any visions lately?” He winced at how off his voice sounded on the question. Light question, that tone was not.

“No, not until we went to gather crystals. What’ve you seen?” She was looking at him again, and he felt her asking to see through the bond.

“I don’t know what any of them mean, but it’s the last one that’s bothering me. Whatever else I see, it always ends with that. I can’t see who they are and I can’t get a read on what they want. It’s just Dark, and it feels like I’m covered in a cruiser’s worth of engine gunk.” He looked down at the parts spread around him as he spoke, pushing that vision to the forefront; the feeling of the black holes in the Dark Side woven into it around the figure.

“That’s one of the views from the Senate building.” Her brow was furrowed, eyes narrow. He could feel her trying to figure out if she’d been near whoever this was over the bond.

“So the Jedi are right about a Sith in the Senate?” The idea was foreign. He didn’t have any love for the Republic; and Ben had only ever given them the academics of the Sith from his training. Not enough to be useful for spotting one in the wild. Just enough to know to stay far, far away and hidden as deep as they could get unless they were sure whatever they were going to do would kill the Sith.

“Maybe. It could be symbolic; that’s happened before.”

“Boonta Eve, yeah.”

“We already know the Republic isn’t exactly what they should be. Them going to war is just going accelerate the corruption that was already happening. That’s not even going into what’s being done to Rex’s brothers. We shouldn’t rule anything out. Have you been sleeping?” At that, her eyes were scanning his face and he could feel when she saw the bags under his eyes.

“Not really. That vision keeps waking me up. Not great for the PT either.”

“We could try putting you in a trance. We should’ve done that already after how long you were disconnected anyway.”

“I don’t know.” The idea of being in a coma again after so little time awake made Anakin’s stomach turn.

“You need sleep, Ani. It’ll help with the recovery time too. We’ll wake you up when we get to Tatooine. There’s not really anything to do until we get there anyway.”

“Besides pilot us in.”

“Ani.” That was the ‘don’t be difficult’ voice.

“I just. I know nobody here is in trouble, but if I go under and there’s a problem. I. You know.” He picked at the calluses on his hand.

“What happened with the Council wasn’t something you could’ve changed even if you weren’t hurt. Don’t blame their actions on something you couldn’t control, Ani. And don’t drive yourself off the edge like your ori’vod trying to prevent things you can’t control. Manda knows, one of him is enough.” Her face went shadowed again.

“He won’t talk to me. Not really. Ever since I woke up on Naboo, he’s scared to be around me. He’s let the bond back, but he won’t _talk_ to me, Buir. It’s like he’s just getting further away. And I don’t know what to do to get him to stop! If I go under, he’s just going to blame himself for that too, and it’ll be even worse.”

“You can’t force Ben to do anything. The most you can do is be there for him, and the best way to do that right now is to take care of yourself. You really won’t be able to do anything if you let yourself fall apart trying to chase after him. You know what Ben is like. He’ll come around. Right now, he needs space, An’ika.” She turned all the way towards him

“I don’t know, Buir. You didn’t see his face when I woke up.”

“You have to let him heal in his own way. He needs your support, but that’s different for him than it is for either of us.”

“Yeah, but is it healing; or is it him trying to protect us from something we already knew about?”

“We don’t get to make that call. Not this soon.”

Anakin stared at his hands. A week ago, sitting like this would’ve been painful. There wasn’t _time_ for this. Any of it.

“Okay.”

Another coma it was, then.

///

“Come on, Fives!” 782 was right in Fives’ face, eyes bright.

“Yeah, Fives; show us what we’re risking our shebs for!” 4040 was almost vibrating, excitement casting off in the Force in waves.

Echo was sitting in his drawer, Droidbait and 4040’s sabacc game forgotten with the newest thing the squad was doing against the longnecks’ protocols.

“It’s not like Hibir’s holos.” General Ti said that came later, with more experience.

“Come on, do anything! Not like we know what any of it is,” Droidbait was peering over the side of 4040’s drawer.

Fives sighed. “Okay, okay.” He looked around, none of the other brothers were paying attention. He could _feel_ that none of them were, and wasn’t that the damndest thing?

He reached, the extension coming much quicker now that he knew what he was looking for. The world got bigger and he wrapped part of his mind around the cards in 4040’s hands. He could feel the shape of them, the texture, how many there were, the feeling of the plastic coating on the paper. He breathed and felt the cards slip out of 4040’s hands as he exhaled. 4040 jumping made him drop them, cackling like one of those witches the older brothers told stories about.

“Nice, Fives.” 4040 was scowling down at him.

“At least I didn’t hit you with it.” The feeling of his squad around him, content for the moment did exactly what General Ti said. It was way easier to reach the Force like this.

“That’s what General Ti’s been teaching you?” Echo was looking at the cards like he was expecting them to bite 4040.

“Sort of. It’s mostly been about sensing stuff. _Feelings_ , you know? Like what they said Rex and Commander Wolffe used to do.” More scuttlebutt courtesy of the cleanup crew. Commander Wolffe had been another weird ori’vod, and the word about General Koon’s Wolfpack had started including whispers about him being psychic.

“So you can see the future? Oh! Do we pass?” Fives raised an eyebrow at Droidbait. The vod at least had the dignity to blush.

“That’s not how it works, even for the psychic ones. It doesn’t all work the same for everyone; that’s why the Jedi train everyone differently.”

“But can’t they all make poodoo float?” 782 shuffled closer on his drawer.

“Yeah, but that’s the basic stuff. The stuff Hibir does in the holos is advanced. And there’s stuff that you can either do it or you can’t.”

“Like what?” The sabacc game was completely abandoned, cards scattered near the edges of 4040’s drawer.

“Like the stuff that General Vos does, you know, with the reading stuff. He does that with the Force. It’s the weirdest feeling too.”

“You can _feel_ that?” Echo looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be fascinated or horrified.

“Yeah. General Ti says any of them can.” Fives did another scan to check for any brothers listening in. That was still cool.

“What’s General Ti feel like?” Asked 782. General Ti’s serenity was legendary in the rumor mill.

“Like she does for everyone else, but more. Like. You know when you get kind of lightheaded and you feel like everything kind of fuzzy? Like that, but like you’re still aware of everything. Kind of like you’re floating. That’s only if I’m actually trying to feel for her though.”

“Do we feel like anything?” Droidbait had climbed onto Echo’s drawer, scattering cards everywhere to a chorus of cursing from 782 and 4040.

“It’s hard to explain. When we’re just sitting around like this it feels like security. Safe, you know? I don’t really know what the word for it is.”

That was the other thing. It was like General Ti said, they all felt different. 782 felt like a combination of durasteel and the lightning storms around Tipoca. Echo felt like a live wire, listening and tuned for everything with something solid and tough underneath holding it together. 4040 felt like when one of the brothers had pressurized the canteens with carbon dioxide, energy bubbling over the surface, exploding over in random bursts of jokes and sarcasm. Droidbait felt like like a charge pack, all energy looking for somewhere to go, something to do, laser focus on whatever he was doing, excluding almost everything else. Fives was kind of curious what it was like for someone who had always looked at people this way. And after the meeting with General Vos, he couldn’t help but wonder how different he actually felt from the rest of his brothers in the Force. The thought that he was like General Ti, or General Vos, or Hibir at all was such an alien idea that he struggled to put together the senses he’d been discovering and the things he’d seen them do.

“So, did you hear about the 212th?” Droidbait stretched, looking around at the other squads.

“What happened now?” 4040 had moved to the edge of his drawer after making Droidbait clean up the cards.

“There was this big uproar. Apparently they got a new General and he’s got a reputation. Real aruetii. One of the vode said it was because they lost those jetii prisoners so they gave them someone who was already kind of out there anyway.” Droidbait glanced between them all as he delivered the latest piece of gossip from the brothers in communications.

“You’re full of poodoo.” 782 said flatly.

“Really! Fives, didn’t you say it seemed like General Ti felt different about General Vos than any of the others she’s mentioned? I bet they have aruetii like we do.”

“She only felt a tiny bit annoyed. I don’t think that’s really enough to say-”

“Yeah, but you’re like them, you know? So if you’re like them, maybe they’re not as different from us as we think.” Droidbait’s jaw was set.

“Don’t let the longnecks catch you saying something like that, Droidbait.” Echo had loosened up about a lot of things since Fives had told them about everything. The longnecks and their policies were not on that list.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, though, ‘Bait. General Ti is teaching me under the other jetiise’s noses. If I weren’t that different from them, she wouldn’t have to do that. There’s something else going on.” The argument felt like a brick of durasteel in Fives’ throat. The Force didn’t like that. It didn’t make it any less true.

“But what about Rex?” That came from 4040, and the conversation dried right up.

Nobody in Tipoca seemed to know what to make out of the story about Rex, one of Kamino’s ‘best specimens’ up and deserting with the not-so-secret support from one of the (supposedly) strictest and most upright Commanders in the GAR. It defied pretty much everything the vode had been taught about their duties since they were decanted. Nobody could openly say that he was right, but Fives knew for a fact that there were pockets of brothers who said they’d rather follow Rex than one of the jetiise if he was what they said he was. With what he was learning, Fives was starting to think they might have the right idea.

“What about him?” Echo sounded vaguely bitter.

“If he’s anything like Fives, maybe they aren’t really so different. And there are those stories about Wolffe. I mean, Force Sensitivity is supposed to be rare, even for nat-borns, right? If we’re really that much different, then why do we have vode who are like them? Fives is one of us, but he’s got the same thing as the jetii. What makes him less valuable than one of the Commanders?” 4040’s face was lit up, like he’d been thinking about this for a while.

“Lack of training? Lack of experience? The fact that he’s not a kriffing Jedi?”

“Why not? Isn’t he being trained by a General?” 782 cut Echo off at the quick and Fives felt the Force being pulled tight between them all like one of those springs. Something important was happening, he knew it.

“General Ti said that not every Force Sensitive was a Jedi. That means that there are nat-borns who have the same thing who aren’t Jedi, right? Maybe…maybe the vode with the Force are something else, like General Vos said. Maybe they don’t know what to do with us either. It’s not like they knew we existed before the war started.” Fives didn’t know where all of this was coming from. “It’s worth thinking about; you’ve got to give it that Echo. We’re not droids, even if they want us to be. You’re not either. If you were, you would’ve given me up already.”

Echo looked horrified at the idea.

“But what does that mean?”

The call went out for Domino Squad’s next set of drills before anyone could answer Droidbait’s question.

///

Rex stared at the crystal in his hands. It was still warm to the touch and he didn’t have a clue what to do with it. Ejasa had very gently suggested figuring out a way to carry it if he didn’t want to make a lightsaber then pointed him towards the shop room. He tried not to pay attention to what looked like beskar in one of the corners. There were more interesting things to look at anyway. He’d noticed parts and pieces of what looks like tens to hundreds of types and variations of homemade weapons when he’d come in, but only the one bench. The boxes nearest to the bench had what could only be lightsaber parts or things that could stand in for one part or other. He could feel the energy from the three of them focusing on whatever they’d been doing coating the table.

The thing was, the idea of a lightsaber in his hands was ridiculous. Lightsabers weren’t weapons clones used; and Rex may not be with the GAR anymore, but that didn’t mean that he could carry one. But the thing _was_ that the concept, the idea of having a lightsaber, of that being a primary weapon felt as right as the DC-17s had the day he’d picked them up in training. That wasn’t something he could just ignore, either. And the idea of just abandoning the crystal and leaving it to gather dust felt wrong on an almost spiritual level.

It seemed like it absorbed the light around it. The sides had the same texture as that fogged transparisteel the longnecks used for windows when they didn’t want the vode to see outside. Rex still felt like some of his blood was in the crystal somewhere, and that didn’t feel like as wrong of an idea as it probably should. He could feel it in the Force too, this low hum that felt like it was on the same frequency as him. He’d noticed that Ejasa and Ben had felt the same as the crystals they’d found, like mirrors.

Speaking of Ben.

“Are you using the table?” He was in the doorway, his own crystal in his hand, mask back in place.

“No, no. I’m just. Thinking.” Rex stood, edging out from in front of the bench. He gave Ben a wide berth when he moved to take Rex’s place at the bench. Ben felt a lot like the brothers who’d either punch or cut and run if someone tried to so much as breath on them in the dorms; and they weren’t ever choosy about which one. Still healing or not, Rex didn’t like his chances if Ben got twitchy. Did that mean he was going to leave?

No.

He watched Ben lay his crystal on the table and heave one of the boxes of lightsaber parts onto the table. He dug through, pulling out different things. If there was a method, Rex couldn’t see it.

“That’s a powerful crystal.” Ben’s head was buried in the box, so it took a second for Rex to realize Ben was talking to him.

“They vary?” That was news, but it made sense.

“Well, some crystals are more ‘alive’ than others for want of a better term. Size doesn’t really determine that so much as how much presence it has in the Force. The crystals are kind of like Force Sensitive organics in that regard: some of them have more raw power than others.” Ben sounded and felt a lot more relaxed when he was explaining something.

“What does it mean, though. A powerful crystal?”

“Nothing if you don’t want it to. It just means that crystal chose you, that’s all.”

“I thought everything about the Force was supposed to be meaningful.” The way Ejasa explained things, every single nuance from the Force had meaning and had to be listened to.

“That’s a way to interpret it. Ejasa’s way works for her, but I tend to stick to following the messages that are right in front of me. If the Force truly wants you to pay attention to something, I’ve found it’s rarely subtle about whatever that thing may be.” Ben heaved the box back onto the floor and started looking around. Rex handed him the toolkit that was sitting on one of the magnetized shelves above the table before leaning back against the wall. If nobody was going to yell at him about maintaining proper attention, then Rex didn’t feel like having sore feet.

Ben nodded a thanks and started pulling out tools. “How’d you find the planet, anyway?” He asked, head tilting towards Rex for a second.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t like it was on Coruscant. That was strong, but with the Jedi everywhere, it felt a little bit like standing in the middle of an incinerator if I didn’t at least try to shield. With the Dark Wells around it felt a lot more comfortable to drift on.” Rex still didn’t know what that said about him. One of the only things the longnecks had ever said about Force Users, outside of showing them what they had to work with, was that darjetii were the enemy.

“I don’t remember most of my life before I-, before I was what I was. But what I do know is that some people are just designed to use the Dark. When I first tried to train Ejasa and Silas, I think that Light part of the Jedi training was stuck. I tried to teach them to only use the Light. Ejasa did fine for the most part. She really is more Light aligned. Silas on the other hand. He would explode. It was like trying to use incompatible fuel on a speeder. Some things would work, some things wouldn’t. The results and his control were always inconsistent.

“As soon as both of them started using the Dark, they leveled out. Both of them had far more control and exponentially better results when they used whichever side felt like the right side to use for whatever technique they were trying to accomplish. I’ve also noticed that since I embraced the Dark, trying to only use the Light feels like I’m scorching myself. It’s entirely possible that you’re someone who’s better configured for the Dark than the Light. It’s more difficult overall, but the Dark side, when used properly, is no different than the Light when it comes to its capability for destruction or construction. There have been people who use the Light exclusively who’ve razed cities to the ground.” His voice was even and offhanded and he started lining up parts and wires in the shape of a hiltaround the crystal as he talked.

“So I’m Dark?” Rex wasn’t going to get into the philosophical parts. That felt like something to ask Ejasa about anyway. Or maybe Silas, about the more destructive parts from what Ben said.

“Maybe. This isn’t something I would’ve said before I saw how Ejasa and Silas found their balance by themselves, but you need to experience both and see what balance, what ratio, feels the most comfortable, the most natural. Before Geonosis, I’d found mine, and you really can’t mistake it for anything else once you feel it.” His voice only had the tiniest tremor at the mention of Geonosis, but the Force shuddered over the bond.

“What do lightsabers and Kyber crystals have to do with it?” Really, though. It seemed like Ejasa was right about everything meaning something through the Force and Rex was starting to feel like he was illiterate and missing everything.

“They’re just tools. Ejasa, Silas, and I probably assign them more importance and value than other people might. They’re Mandalorian, and you know what the Kaminoan training was like. But how much symbolism you give them depends on how much importance you give the color of the blade really.”

“Color is a concern?” Rex had noticed that none of the Jedi on Geonosis used a red blade like Hibir had, and that purple and yellow seemed like rare colors.

“Well, certain colors tend to belong to certain types of Force Users. Not always, but it just seems like the Force colors the crystal a certain way with certain types of usage and how you treat the crystal itself.

“Blue tends to be Light aligned people who don’t go into the more esoteric techniques very much and stick with the more general techniques. Green tends to be Light aligned people too. Mostly people who use more rare techniques in the Force as well as being deeply tied to the Force on a fundamental level. Yellow can be either Light or Dark, but Dark aligned people tend to have a slightly more orange color in the blade. Usually, people with a yellow blade are people who are deeply rooted in the Force, especially the philosophy of it. People who are trying to understand its nature as well as the academic parts of it.

“Purple is usually a sign of someone who uses a mixture of the Light and the Dark and how skewed towards red or blue the color of the blade is can indicate what balance of Light and Dark the person uses. Not always, though. Silas’s old blade was indigo and he definitely uses much more Dark than that would tell you. Red means someone exclusively Dark Side. How bright the color of the blade is tells you how much they’ve bent the crystal. Kyber crystals, even if they choose you, will resist certain techniques that Sith and others like them tend to use. Massacres will brighten up the blade’s hue as well. Someone with a very dark red blade, a deoxygenated blood color or burgundy, is a Dark Sider, but probably hasn’t bent their crystal or made it bleed.”

“But is it a concern if someone’s lightsaber is dark red?” Rex couldn’t help but think about how close to red the crystal in his hands really was.

“No. At one time I might’ve said yes; but I’d prefer to let the feeling of the Force around someone and their actions tell me about them rather than the color of their ‘saber. Like I said, it’s a potential indicator, but it’s hardly the most reliable way to tell you about someone’s alignment. People can steal ‘sabers, borrow them, switch them. I’ve used Ejasa and Silas’s ‘sabers instead of my own more than a few times. It doesn’t ever work as well as using one with a crystal that’s in tune with you, but it’ll still work.”

“Right.”

Rex pulled his crystal out of his pocket and looked at it again. He could feel the Dark around them. As cold as it was, felt like a natural place to be, a lining of it around Rex’s senses, keeping his core shielded from whatever was out there. It felt safe. He knew from the sensation of the Dark being in that vision and the Wells that there was such a thing as too much. But he couldn’t imagine trying to just draw on the supernova heat of the Light. He’d be fried from the inside out.

“How do you start to build a lightsaber anyway?”

Rex had never been the best about following protocol to the letter. Starting when nobody was going to recondition or scrap him for not doing it? When his gut was telling him where to go?

That was a joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Demagolka-War criminal, Real life monster  
> Ori’vod-Older Sibling/Brother  
> Manda-Heaven  
> Shebs-Behind  
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Aruetii-In this context, Outsider  
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings  
> Jetii-Jedi  
> Darjetii-Sith
> 
> So. Tipoca is an interesting place to be. Domino squad is always awesome, period; and Fives is Learning How to Force, Jedi style (read clone with Jedi influence style). Rex is just learning a lot of stuff and perhaps regretting his life choices a little bit. Lightsaber construction has begun. I’m not really going to go into the technical parts (my technobabble isn’t good enough for that), but it has begun. There is not a single world in which anybody with the last name Skywalker or Kenobi knows how to take care of themselves without external intervention. Shmi is a saint. I’m also a really big fan of the Lightsaber Colors Mean Something idea. I know it says that Kyber crystals don’t work with the Dark Side on the article; but this is an AU, so there are no rules!


	5. Company Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a traitor

Qui-Gon could taste the fear, thick and cloying, before the gunship landed. He admired the captain’s resolve. He was the first one off the ship and came right up to Qui-Gon, standing strong and tall. Not a single tremor betrayed that fear. He felt the echos of that fear in well disguised flows from Cody and a bitter bite of guilt from both of them. He knew well where that fear was coming from. How could he feel anything but an answering guilt for the lack of care the Council had shown these men? And Ahsoka. He would have to talk with Ahsoka again. For now, though; there was the matter of Captain Stacks to be resolved.

“Captain.” Qui-Gon kept himself reigned into his core. He needed to meditate, but he hadn’t had anywhere near the time to do so.

“General Jinn, sir.” Stacks hesitated like he wanted to say more.

“Captain, you’re not at fault for what happened. You are to continue with your duties as instructed by Commander Cody. Commander Tano’s actions are her own; you’ll not be held accountable for them.” That conclusion had taken longer for Qui-Gon to come to than he would ever care to admit. Ahsoka may still be a junior padawan, but she outranked every single one of these men except Cody, and that was only by the barest of technicalities. The feeling of relief coming off of Cody and Stacks was so profound, it was like a flood. If that wasn’t a testament to how badly these men had been failed, there wasn’t one.

“Yes sir. I’ll go attend to my duties now.” Stacks gave a sharp salute and headed back to his men.

Qui-Gon could feel Cody’s eyes on him. He walked away towards Ahsoka. She’d avoided him since they’d set down on Christophsis. He’d allowed it because, frankly, he hadn’t had the time or opportunity to chase her down. What with all the chaos of getting Bail Organa off planet and securing their footing and chasing off the remnants of Trench’s forces, and re-establishing the base. Now was the only spare moment he had before the briefing with Luminara and her own padawan.

Ahsoka wouldn’t look him in the eye. She clutched at her arm and her shoulders were hunched over so far she was almost bent in half. Qui-Gon sighed and sat beside her, back against the building. Yes. Sitting in this position had been a mistake, but it was too late for that now. He kept away from the bond. He wasn’t in the position that showing her what was wrong with what she’d done would be anything but harmful. It needed to be spoken instead. Now if he could find the words.

“Ahsoka.” She flinched at his voice and he held in a sigh. Where were the words?

“Ahsoka, what you did. The results were good. There are men who are alive here that wouldn’t be if you hadn’t done what you did. You also enabled Master Luminara to take out the Invincible and Admiral Trench, and in the process of doing so, saved my life and the lives of everyone on the stealth ship. All of that was good. And you did it in a way that kept you in the Light; and that’s admirable.” He kept his eyes on the staging ground where gunships were flying in and out like Naboo honeybees.

“But I need you to understand that it wasn’t just you whose life you risked, or the Blue Squadron’s. Captain Stacks was responsible for you. He may not outrank you, but his mission was to advise you and help protect you. I have faith in your abilities; but you are a junior padawan, and this is war. Captain Stacks was there to make sure not only that you would learn, but to make sure that you would be as safe as possible while you were learning. What you did put him at risk. Not just his job, but his life. His life was in your hands by what actions you took in the same way as Blue Squadron’s were through the orders you gave. You need to consider who will be affected by what you do more carefully now, ‘Soka. We cannot avoid death or harm when it comes to the men. But anything we can do to lessen the risk, is something we should do.

“Before we go to the briefing, you will apologize to him. Properly. You may technically outrank him, but you betrayed his trust. And he deserves to know that you’re sorry for that, even if you’re not sorry about the results. Someone getting hurt in the process is still someone getting hurt in the process; and I’ll not have you take as long as I did to learn that.”

He sent her as much reassurance, peace, and calm as he could before he stood and walked back over to the staging ground. There really wasn’t enough time. But with fallout from the overdraw of the Force she’d gone through, the lecture was enough punishment. More would just be overkill, for her and for his already shot and frayed nerves. The image of fighters disappearing off of Krayt’s viewscreen had haunted him through every fraught attempt to sleep since.

///

Cody wasn’t sure how to feel about General Unduli and Commander Offee. Gree was neither here nor there. Cody hadn’t known him on Kamino and hadn’t come across him since; but all the word about him was that he was competent and cared about his men. Cody could appreciate that. General Unduli, though. Most of the word about her was that she was very traditional. He remembered that she’d been one of the people who hadn’t had much to say about what’d been done to the Abiik-Kemirs. It followed, at least in his mind, that she didn’t necessarily care over much about things the Council didn’t deem relevant. And right now, Cody and his brothers seemed to be disposable as far as the Council was concerned. That didn’t fill him with confidence.

Stacks was next to him, and that was a relief that Cody didn’t even have words for. If he was being realistic, he knew that General Jinn could’ve gotten away with doing a whole hell of a lot after the Commander had managed to sneak away from Stacks like that. Cody had enough names to say at remembrance as it was without adding Stacks to the list. The Commander had even apologized! Cody had overheard it by accident and the shock of a jetii apologizing to one of his brothers, even a shiny one like the Commander, had nearly knocked him flat. She’d even sounded like she meant it too. Maybe there was hope.

Coric was on the ground and Bins was with his unit already. They hadn’t had time to go over anything Bins might’ve dug up. Cody hadn’t expected that they would, but it was still a concern, boiling away in the back of his head. If they wanted to get more of those chips out, they’d need to bring in someone else in the upper chain of command. Gregor maybe. But again, there was the problem of secrecy. Gregor wasn’t a brother Cody knew that well outside of that he was a good soldier and a good captain. He needed to know the vod better if he was going to let him in on something with the kind of destructive potential these chips or whatever they were had. That was something to think about later, though. Everyone had finally arrived. Elite 41st Cody’s shebs. They were late for everything.

“We have solid intelligence of a massive incoming attack that a substantial percentage of the CIS troops on planet will be committed to.” General Unduli’s voice was smooth and calm the way it seemed most Jedi’s were supposed to be. “The current plan, as devised by Master Jinn and myself is to catch them in one of the artificial canyons formed by the buildings here on the map.”

The holotable lit up and the image of part of the city turned in a slow circle as General Unduli continued.

“Master Jinn, Padawan Tano, Commander Cody, and Torrent Company will take the North tower and myself, Padawan Offee, Commander Gree and Jade Company will take the South. We shall place canons in the buildings as well as remote activated droid popper bombs along the path they are forced to take between the buildings. Snipers will fire on them from the buildings as well. Those that remain as well as any heavy artillery they may bring will be fired upon by air support provided by the 212th. Command shall be sequestered on the higher floors of the building in order to have the best vantage point from which to command. This operation requires us all to move quickly and work together seamlessly. I expect thorough and complete communication between not only our men, but command as well.” At that her eyes went over to Commander Tano. Cody had to give the Commander respect; she took that and didn’t even look away or flinch.

Cody’s list of recommendations was prepared if General Jinn asked. Torrent was ready to go. Stacks had done a good job getting everybody together. Sheer had already gotten all the preliminary paperwork done. Cody was, to his surprise, hopeful that today might end without a headache. It was a very small amount of hope, but it was there.

“Commander, Master Unduli and I have arranged where the men need to be. I’d like you to give out the assignments.” General Jinn handed him a datapad.

“Yes sir.”

It was all very simple. The ground troops would be in the building on the side facing the assault to flood the clankers after the poppers went off with snipers in every place with even a halfway decent shot. They couldn’t run a lot of ships, the risk of exposure was too high. But they could have two Pit Crew squads’ worth of gunships in the air. General Unduli’s battalion would mirror them. When it was all done, they’d take the rest of the 212th’s ships back under their command and go wherever their next assignment was. Apparently. It was never that simple, but it was a nice thought. He turned to Stacks and started going over it.

Sheer was going to have a field day.

///

Qui-Gon looked out across the bridge to the South tower. He could feel Master Luminara and saw Jade Company moving around the building in his macrobinoculars. Behind him, he felt the platoon getting into their places. He heard Lieutenant Flora talking to the men in charge of the canon. He looked down the way. No droids yet. The Force was gathered like a thunderstorm, clouds building, charging up for something. Qui-Gon could quite parse what it was, but it was making him uneasy. He scanned the room again. Everyone was ready to go, Ahsoka was within arms reach, looking out through her own macrobinoculars. Cody, Stacks, and Sheer had just swept into the room, Stacks and Sheer heading straight for the Lieutenant. Cody went right to Qui-Gon.

“Everyone’s in position, sir.” Cody parked himself next to him.

“Good. You’re just in time.”

Cody looked across the way too. His signature was even. It was something Qui-Gon had never seen anywhere else, this sense of relaxed alertness. Ready for action at a moments notice, but not uncomfortable or paranoid. All of the men had that same sort of level sensation. Cody had implied that Torrent Company were some of the best, and Qui-Gon found it hard to disagree with that in the face of how solid everyone felt in the Force.

“We’ve got movement!” One of the spotters sounded the alert.

“Looks like a whole battalion. They’ve got tanks, sir,” Stacks said.

Qui-Gon looked down through his macros and the battalion closed in. The Force was drawing tight, thunderheads getting ready to break. Something big was about to happen.

_What’s going on, Master?_ Ahsoka asked over the bond.

_I don’t know yet. Be on guard._

“Cody, tell the men to be on alert. Not just for that battalion.” He felt the sideways glance through Cody’s helmet, but Cody relayed the warning in his own words over the comms anyway.

“Just a little closer,” said Ahsoka, still looking out through her macros.

Qui-Gon put a hand on his ‘saber, watching the insect-like forms of the droids close on the artificial canon between the buildings.

“Wait, the droids are splitting up. Something’s wrong!” The spotter yelled. Qui-Gon went to look through his macros but never got the chance. The feeling of death splattered through the Force as the thunderheads of the Force finally broke. He was going to the stairs before he even realized he was moving.

“Fortify all the entrances onto this floor! Get blasters on the doors, now! Order all of the men on the lower floors to get up here. We hold this floor.” He ordered, ‘saber in hand. “Master Luminara, we’ve been exposed. We’re going to need an evacuation. We are routed.”

He could feel a wave of death sweeping up the building. The lift was coming up. Ahsoka squared up at his side, her own ‘saber in her hand. Cody was barking orders at the men and they lined every single entrance and exit.

The lift doors opened, and Qui-Gon was reflecting red bolts back as fast as he could. Blue bolts shot past him, clones cutting down droids as fast as their blasters would allow. They cut down the first wave of droids, but that wave of death was still surging its way up the building. Qui-Gon knew in his bones that they were done if they stayed here. Some of the men from the lower floors got in through the stairs, armor covered in carbon scoring from blaster fire. Wounded were being supported or carried in.

There were so few.

“We’ve got movement on the stairs, General!”

Qui-Gon told Ahsoka to stay on the emptied lift and sprinted over to the door just as the droids broke through. They just had to hold until the men got the lift working. Just a few minutes.

He reflected fire back, but the droids kept coming, and the smoke from bad shots, melted plastoid and wiring, and burned flesh was getting thick. He felt it as the men dropped around him, fewer and fewer blue bolts cutting down a wave of droids that seemed like it would never end.

The first one to make it through was a commando that Qui-Gon cut in half at the cost of a couple of B1s getting through the defense. He _pushed_ hard, flinging the remnants of the commando at the B1s, smashing all of them into the walls and barely registering the crack of their plating against the wall before having to twist to avoid taking a bolt.

He reflected the next few blaster bolts, then shot forward, ‘saber primed, and stabbed through another B1, cutting up through its head and swinging across to cut through another two that were right behind it.

“General, the men got the lift moving, we have to get to the roof!” Cody called, at Qui-Gon’s shoulder, blaster aimed at the doorway.

Qui-Gon followed Cody back, keeping his ‘saber moving to reflect the fire. The hail of blue blaster fire got thicker until they were finally on the lift. The doors closed and Qui-Gon could feel how few of Torrent were truly left. The wave of death had torn it apart.

He kept his shoulder squared and his back straight. It wouldn’t do to let any of this go. Besides, they weren’t out yet. He checked on Ahsoka through the bond and had a moment of grief for how _steady_ she was before shaking it off and getting ready for the fight getting off the roof was doubtless going to be.

“Be prepared to have to shoot our way out.” He ordered. Probably needlessly, but it bore saying anyway.

The doors opened and the gunships were there with the men that’d already been sent up waiting inside. Unfortunately, Qui-Gon could hear the droids clanking their way towards the roof. Everyone ran towards the gunships, the most able-bodied staying at the back with Qui-Gon and Ahsoka.

Red blaster fire streaked towards them and Qui-Gon reflected it back guarding his men’s backs, a hail of blue answering from the men at his sides. He saw Ahsoka’s ‘saber moving out of the corner of his eye, red bolts pinging back towards the droids in his peripheral. Finally, he was on the ship and they were taking off, out of the droid’s range.

Sitting in the gunships, he could see what he’d already felt. That it only took two gunships to pick all of them up said everything about what had just happened.

///

Cody hooked the tactical droid’s head into the holotable. Stacks, General Jinn, and Commander Tano were standing around it, General Jinn rubbing his face and staring at it. R4 trundled up and started going through it.

“The Republic Army are in the North and South towers, floor forty-six.” There it was. Their whole damn plan in the clear blue of a holodisplay, straight from a Seppie droid’s vocabulator.

“How could a leak like that happen?” Commander Tano sounded as shattered as Cody felt.

“I don’t believe we did. Everything was kept extremely contained. Nobody knew where we were going except the men involved, and they were told to report to the hanger before they were given their orders. No interaction with anybody who wasn’t involved in some way. So the only way they could’ve known…” General Jinn trailed off. That’d been exactly where Cody hadn’t wanted to go; but the General was right.

All of this was made even worse by the Seppie fleet that’d just rolled in. The rest of the legion was engaged and they wouldn’t be able to get reinforcements or supplies until the line was broken. Again.

“A spy, sir?” Stacks was the one to say it.

“Indeed. I believe Master Luminara and I should pay a visit behind enemy lines. Find out what all of this is meant to come to. Commander, Captain, I want you to hunt down whoever leaked the information. Ahsoka, you are to go through communications and try to see how far back this goes. Keep this contained. Not a soul is to know until the traitor has been caught. Is that clear?” General Jinn looked all of them in the eye in turn.

“Yes sir,” Cody said.

“Yes Master.”

“May the Force be with you.” Without anything more, the General walked out of the command center.

Cody saw the blinking red light on the comm a second too late.

“Someone’s been listening in!”

All three of them streaked out of the command center just in time to see a shadowy figure down the hallway dart away. The chased after them, Cody in the lead, Stacks and the Commander’s footsteps pounding against the durasteel floor behind him.

The fork came up way too fast.

“I’ll go left, you two go right and try to cut them off!” Cody yelled, already turning, boots sliding on the floor before he could get traction. He couldn’t see the figure at all and he pushed harder, sprinting down the hall as fast as he could.

That almost got him run through by Commander Tano’s ‘saber. She yelped, jumping back as he skidded to a stop centimeters from the blade.

“He must’ve gone in here!” Stacks called, opening the door to the mess.

“Shavit.” The Commander scanned around the room

“We have a problem,” Stacks said.

“Yeah. The only people in here, are brothers.” That sick feeling from right after the ambush was back in Cody’s stomach.

The walk back to the Command center was filled with tension and paranoid glances around them.

“One of us?” Stacks sounded crushed.

“How?” The Commander was starting to sound angry.

She threw herself into the chair in front of the comms terminal and called for R4 to search for something.

It made more and more sense the longer Cody thought about it. And that just turned his stomach more.

“Pull up those plans on the holotable again,” he said to Stacks.

The plans appeared again.

“This was what we gave the squad leaders, wasn’t it.” Stacks said, frowning at the display as it spun.

“Yeah it was, and that was what got handed out to the troopers too.”

“Commander Cody!” The Commander leapt straight to her feet.

“What is it?” Cody heard Stacks following behind.

“Look! Communication records going back at least a month. At least twice a day, but in small packages. Stuff you’d never notice unless you looked at it over time like this. At least, that’s what R4 says. Look at the chart.” She held up a datapad, and sure enough, there was a cyclic pattern of data, the pattern continuing on one squad’s terminal.

“Slick’s squad,” Cody said, the stone in his gut sinking even further than he thought possible.

“Slick’s not going to like that.” Stacks warned, voice tight, the betrayal making him look as sharp as a vibroblade.

///

They’d reached the base untouched, and nothing about that was making Qui-Gon feel any less like something very bad was about to happen. Master Luminara crouched at the door next to him, both of them keenly aware of the mass of droids that had collected behind them, sweeping them towards this building here. Qui-Gon stretched out his senses, looking for something. He could feel Master Luminara doing the same. There was a sort of dead spot in the Force. Something too smooth and natural feeling to be natural. He was getting reminders of how Ejasa Abiik-Kemir had felt in the Force in that fateful meeting in the Chancellor’s office.

“There’s someone hiding in there. Dark Sider,” he warned Master Luminara. She glanced over at him, eyes skeptical.

“Are you certain?”

“There’s the same sort of sense as when the Abiik-Kemirs were hiding themselves. The Force feels too smooth, too normal somewhere inside there.”

She nodded. “Then we’ve really no choice but to go in, Master Jinn.” She pulled her lightsaber and Qui-Gon steadied himself in the Force.

“On three. One. Two. Three.”

Master Luminara _pushed_ the doors open and the two of them ghosted in silently, muffling their footsteps with the Force.

As soon as they hit the main atrium, a figure in a black hood stepped in front of them. She dropped her hood and Qui-Gon’s eyes widened. It was the assassin who’d tried to kill Senator Amidala on Naboo! They hadn’t heard anything about that assassin escaping!

“It’s good to put a face to a name. Good to make your acquaintance, Master Jinn and Master Unduli. My loyal informant let me know you were coming.”

“Who are you, assassin?” Luminara demanded, lightsaber in an easy grip. Qui-Gon had his in a ready stance as well, his eyes following every move the assassin made. Ahsoka had never told him anything specific about them and he’d never asked Silas. Clearly an oversight.

“I am Asajj Ventress, Master Jedi. My Master sends his regards.”

She shot towards both of them like a blaster bolt and Qui-Gon barely had time to get his ‘saber ignited before he caught a bright scarlet blade in a block.

He heard Master Luminara dealing with the droids that were coming through the doors behind them as he twisted, ducking out of the way of her blades. The Force flowed through him and he pushed forward, forcing her into a defensive flurry, light green bade flashing against scarlet.

She caught his blade between the two of hers and twisted, trying to force him to drop it.

He twisted his wrist in a tiny flick putting Force behind it, and she dropped the lock with an almost feral hiss.

He feigned down, before trying a stab. She just managed to catch him, blocking the stab with her left and cutting with her right, forcing him back on defense.

Master Luminara cut in from behind, Ventress catching her on her left ‘saber.

Qui-Gon felt the Force gather around her and she shot up the stairs in a perfect flip, landing without making a sound. He ran up after her, Master Luminara next to him.

She turned back towards the two of them, and all of the sudden the Force surged again, books flying off a shelf at them. Qui-Gon caught them and _pushed_ , adding more and more pressure until he felt her fracture and the books flew at her, Master Luminara running at her, ‘saber aimed right at her chest.

She caught Master Luminara just as Qui-Gon reached them.

A maneuver that was too quick for Qui-Gon to track, and she’d disappeared into the darkness again.

///

“No way. My guys are the best. No way any of them would do that!” Slick’s eyes were flashing.

“It had to have been one of you, Slick. It came from this squad’s terminal.” At this point, Cody just wanted this to be over.

“I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong squad! They trust each other. None of them would even think of doing something like that!”

“Something like what?” Sketch asked as the remaining members of Squad Two-A walked through their barrack door.

“You called them?!” Slick looked an inch away from strangling Cody and Stacks.

Cody chose to ignore Slick testing the last dregs of his patience. He understood. He really did. But now was not the time to be questioning his authority. Especially in front of his men. That was just unprofessional.

Stacks, however, had an answer for everything. “Of course we did. We have to question them, Slick. It’s the only way to figure this out.” He somehow managed to sound collected.

Good.

“There’s a traitor among us. And we think it’s one of you.” Cody addressed the room at large. He let his anger show. If they were scared? Good. He had no mercy for whoever had sold out their brothers.

After a few seconds of uproar, Cody cracked them into sitting down and shutting up, Stacks keeping Slick from going crazy behind them. They’d agreed that having Commander Tano along might not be the best idea. Besides, she had the best shot of warning the Generals somehow, and someone had to let Commander Gree and Commander Offee know.

“So, Jester. What were you doing after we got back?” Cody asked, watching his face.

Jester gulped, glancing at his squadmates for something. “I-I don’t know, sir. Normal stuff, I guess?”

“Normal stuff like what?”

Jester’s hands twisted and he looked at his squadmates again. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just-I’m a bit nervous. You’re my CO.” His eyes were wide, and the guilt twisted in Cody’s gut alongside the stone that was already settled in there.

“If you weren’t doing anything, then you’ve got nothing to worry about, Jester,” Stacks said, his voice a hell of a lot gentler than Cody was capable of being at the moment.

“He was cleaning his weapon, sir.” Sketch spoke up. “It’s what he always does. We come in, and he cleans his weapon. First thing, every time. He’s kind of obsessed that way.” He was giving Jester a reassuring smile.

Cody nodded.

“Is that right? Did you go on the computer while you were here?” He asked

“No sir! Cloth is in the corner and you can check if you want!”

“Show me your weapon.”

Jester handed it over, eyes still wide. Cody’s stomach turned again.

“Freshly scrubbed, just like you said. Good man.” The vod’s relief was palpable. Cody wished, somewhere in the back of his head, that he could feel shame about what they were being forced to do.

“Punch, what about you? Were you cleaning you weapon too?” He moved on.

“No. I was hungry, so I went to the mess.”

“Right away?” Cody circled around to face him, Stacks stopping at his shoulder.

“Oh yeah.”

“Anyone go with you?” Asked Stacks, eyeing Punch with an eyebrow raised.

“Sketch.”

Sketch nodded, face tense as Cody turned towards him. “We got to the mess at the same time, got our grub, and sat together.”

“Anyone able to confirm your story?” Stacks asked, attention still on Punch.

“Loads of guys, you can ask any of them.”

“Oh we will,” Cody said, moving towards Gus.

“Commander, if I could just have a moment with them-”Slick tried again before Gus cut him off.

“No, it’s okay, Sarge. I’ve got nothing to hide. I was in the infirmary.” He lifted his arm, bandages wrapped around it and the slight smell of bacta coming off. “I got banged up pretty good by one of those clankers. Med droid was fixing me up. Doc’s got the records and everything if you want to check.”

Cody examined the bandage for a second before turning to nod at Stacks. Now that just left-

“So Chopper, what were you doing?” Stacks sounded deceptively conversational.

“I was in the mess.” Chopper shrugged, glowering down at his hands.

“No you weren’t! You-” Sketch cut himself off, looking nervous as the entire squad’s attention came down on him.

Cody swooped in.

“If you know something, kid, you should _speak up_.” Cody left no room for argument.

This was going to be done.

Now.

“Chopper came in later. After everyone else.” He looked at Chopper apologetically, shoulders hunching as Slick moved in on Chopper with Stacks.

“Where were you before you went to the mess, Chopper?” Stacks’ voice was flat now.

Cody watched as Chopper shifted, purposefully trying to look relaxed. It wasn’t working.

“Nowhere. Just. Walking around.” He looked at his hands again before looking up between the two of them.

“Chopper, you know we need a better answer than that,” Cody pushed.

Chopper winced, scar twisting with the movement, before he reached behind him and started talking.

“I was hiding at the South exit. I didn’t want anyone to see me string these together.” He pulled out a metal cord with:

“Droid fingers.” Cody scowled. The amount of security risks that could be on the damned things, not to mention the trouble Chopper was in now; for kriff’s sake.

“I just-I just wanted to take something back. I felt. I felt. I felt like they owed me something.” Chopper cringed away.

Cody held in a sigh. A lot of brothers that he’d known had felt the same. It still wasn’t an excuse.

“I always knew there was something _deficient_ about you,” Gus led the charge, the rest of the squad following him to their feet.

“This isn’t good, Chopper. Lying about where you were? Breaking these rules? It puts everything about you into question. I put up with it because you had skill, but if you’re capable of this, what else are you hiding?” Slick was stalking towards Chopper who was on his feet in a heartbeat.

“Wait, no! I’m no spy!”

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, it’ll be okay. We’ll get you a proper investigation. You don’t have to say anything until the Generals get back.” Slick reached for him, but Chopper jumped back, arm ripping out of Slicks grip. He was opening his mouth to say something, but Cody cut him off.

“What do you mean when the Generals get back? How did you know they were gone?”

The entire squad formed up behind Cody and Stacks. Slick looked down before looking at all of them, a strange light that Cody didn’t like showing up in his eyes.

“I really wish you hadn’t noticed that, sir.”

Cody saw the wind up a split second too late to do anything. Slick’s plastoid clad fist cracked on his nose hard enough to knock him off his feet. He heard the traitor running down the hall.

“It’s Slick?!” Stacks’ voice was back to a razor sharp edge.

Cody bounced back and took off after him, Stacks right behind on the comm to Commander Tano.

///

Ventress was just sitting in the middle of the floor. Qui-Gon advanced, Master Luminara still right behind. Ventress looked up at both of them, smirking.

“You’ve served your purpose.”

Her ‘sabers ignited through the floor and Qui-Gon pulled the Force around the two of them, twisting to land on his feet. Master Luminara landed right beside him.

“What’s the plan?” She asked, still looking where Ventress had just been.

“We have to catch her. Come on!” He leaped out of the hole, feeling Master Luminara follow and they chased Ventress’ now uncloaked signature to a blown out window. She was standing on top of one of the Separatist walkers that was clinging to the side of the building, smirk still in place.

“Poor Master Jedi. You’ve been betrayed! It’s so hard to know who to trust these days. Now we’ll take this world.”

Qui-Gon shot forward in synch with Master Luminara, swiping off two of the walker’s legs before jumping onto the monstrosity and engaging Ventress again.

Only a few strikes in, Master Luminara called, “Qui-Gon!”

He saw the droids on some sort of standing speeder type vehicle. Ah, that was clever.

He jumped alongside Master Luminara, slicing through the droid and landing spot on the vehicle. Both he and Master Luminara headed towards the base. Another storm was coming.

He had to find out who this Ventress was, and soon. Perhaps an attempt to contact the Abiik-Kemirs for a few questions about their encounter with her on Naboo would be a good idea when he had the chance.

///

Commander Tano met up with them just as they got past the walkers.

“I’ve got him by the gunships,” Stacks said, waving the tracker display.

“Now that he’s exposed, he has to get out of here.” Cody ran towards Slick’s dot on the scanner, Commander Tano catching up on his other side.

“Are you guys sure? I don’t sense anyone, and I’ve got a bad feeling-Move! Get back now!” She turned, yanking them with her. Cody felt what had to be the Force pulling at him and the three of them flew, landing in a clear spot between some of the gunships just before a series of massive explosions went off.

“He took out our weapons depot.” Cody thought he was angry before. No. That had just been mild annoyance. This. Bombing a base with brothers in it. Actively trying to kill brothers with his own hands. Cody didn’t have _words_ for any of this.

“He must’ve known we’d look here.” Stacks was just getting to his feet. “Thank you, Commander.”

Cody turned towards her. “Yes, thank you.”

He turned, looking at the destruction. “He knows all of our move before we even make them.”

“But he doesn’t know ours. You guys might’ve been trained to work with Jedi, but I bet we’ve still got a few tricks you don’t know about.” Commander Tano looked as angry as Cody felt.

“Sir! Someone just saw Slick run into the command center!”

“I’ll get Barriss and Commander Gree to take over all of this here.” Commander Tano was already messing with her comm.

///

Ahsoka snuck into the command center with Cody and Stacks, feeling through the Force and paying attention to everything that could even hint at movement in her montrals. As soon as they got into the room, she felt the signature up in the huge vent on the ceiling. She motioned as subtly as possible towards it and both of them nodded, movements so small they were almost invisible. She made sure to stay out of sight of the vents as Cody and Stacks circled around the holotable, blaster raised.

“He’s trying to get out,” Cody said, moving towards the terminal. “He can’t use a ship, it’s too obvious.”

“He wants to get around the lockdown, and he’s blinded us by taking out the power. He could disable the whole security system!” Stacks stayed on the other side of the room, keeping his eyes on Cody who put his blaster on the holotable and walked over to one of the displays.

“Go to the South exit,” Cody ordered, not turning around.

“What’re you going to do?” Stacks asked, moving towards Ahsoka.

She crept forward, keeping out of the line of sight of the grates.

“I’m going to see if I can get the power back on, that’ll help!”

Stacks shut the door, and not even a second later, Slick dropped from the ceiling and grabbed the blaster. Ahsoka snuck behind him, using the Force to muscle every sound of her movement, balanced on the tips of her toes. She stretched up behind him just as he reached Cody who cocked his head. The energy coming off of Cody in the Force was nothing short of pure, vicious, razor sharp satisfaction; and it was plain as words on flimsi in his voice too.

“Hey there, Slick.” He held up the charge pack. “Gun’s empty.”

Ahsoka ignited her ‘saber, the tip less than a centimeter away from the nape of Slick’s neck.

“You knew I was here.” Slick felt like poison, and the Force felt Dark around her. Ahsoka kept her ‘saber on him as Stacks came with binders.

“Of course we knew. What was worth selling out your brothers Slick? What was worth all of that?” Cody was radiating anger in the Force and the Dark was pulling in. Suddenly, Ahsoka’s ‘saber being at Slick’s neck felt like a test. She tried to shake that off, pulling the Light around her.

“All of you just blindly follow orders! Whatever coin I got offered, she offered me something more! Freedom!”

“And all you had to do for that was sell us out. I think freedom’s going to have to wait.” Cody’s voice was vibroblade sharp.

Ahsoka turned her ‘saber off as soon as the binders were in place and she grabbed Slick’s arm, not at all being gentle about it either.

“Slick, it was you?” Master Qui-Gon’s voice coming from down the hallway surprised her. She really wasn’t paying as close of attention as she should be.

“He gave us a bit of a chase, sir,” Stacks answered, voice easy and steady in a way it hadn’t been since they’d discovered the comm.

Master Unduli looked over him, eyes harder than Ahsoka had ever seen and she felt a shiver go up her spine.

“How could you do that to your brothers?” Her voice was detached and cold.

Slick scoffed. “Only a Jedi could ask that question. You’re the ones who enslave my brothers! We serve at your whim. Do whatever you tell us. I just wanted something more. Like Rex.”

“Rex didn’t sell out his brothers and put them all at risk. If you were trying to stand up for us, you have a funny way of showing it.” Stacks’ voice cracked like a whip, but that didn’t seem to matter to the Masters. Ahsoka felt the bone-deep guilt over the training bond before Master Qui-Gon managed to shut it down and Master Unduli had leaned back, eyes going pensive at the mention of Rex.

“You betrayed every single one of us. Take him to lock up.” Cody looked like he’d been punched again. But it was weird. Ahsoka had felt a jolt, a tiny stutter through him and Stacks when Rex was mentioned too. And not in the ‘he’s dead to me’ kind of way either.

“Did you manage to save anything in the weapons depot?” Master Qui-Gon was all business again. It didn’t seem like he’d noticed the little stutter around Rex’s name.

“According to Commander Gree, Slick torched almost the whole thing. We managed to save the heavy canons, though.” Stacks reported.

Master Qui-Gon sighed. “Well, that complicates things. An invasion force is heading this way.”

“The fight goes on, gentlemen,” Master Unduli said, nodding before she walked away.

Ahsoka felt around Cody and Stacks in the Force as Master Qui-Gon started asking about the specifics of what’d happened.

What were they hiding?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetii-Jedi  
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Shebs-Backside
> 
> I’ve decided that in merging the 212th and the 501st, the number of trooper warrants the 212th bring upgraded to a legion. Why I decided that trying to name that many commanding officers and actually parse the structure was a good idea is anybody’s guess. At least more clones will be free faster? Also, Luminara Unduli’s Green Company has been upgraded to a battalion because that makes more sense to me than it just being a company. Rex leaving has fallout, but not in the way he'd want.


	6. Can You Hear Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Anakin has feelings and there are meetings

Being in a healing trance felt like he was gliding on the wind. Not too hot, not too cold, not anything but the Force around him. Coming out of it was always a slow process. Hearing always came back first. He would hear voices through the Force then voices outside, then whatever other noise was trying to get his attention. Then it moved on to smell, weirdly enough. He ever really payed enough attention to figure out taste, but touch coming back was the rough one. His skin would prickle and burn all over for a minute. It was only ever for a minute, but that minute was always a memorable one. The sensation of sinking back into his body and being contained again was weird, and he always felt a little bit disjointed for a couple hours. Like something was either there that shouldn’t be, or something wasn’t there that should be, or something was just not put back right.

But on finally getting his eyes to cooperate with him, Anakin did notice, first, that he actually did feel a lot better; and second, that Ben was sitting next to him reading something. And there was water right there this time. Recovering at home was the best. He grabbed the water, being careful to go slow and try and let his coordination catch up with his brain. The instant he moved, Ben stopped reading and looked over at him.

“How’re you feeling?” His voice was soft, Coruscanti accent more defined than usual.

Anakin checked himself over again. The pain left over from the chunk taken out of his healing time were a lot less painful than before. His neck almost felt normal.

“Better. What about you?” Whatever else had or hadn’t come over the bond, Anakin hadn’t missed the distant aches Ben had been nursing since Geonosis.

Ben huffed a little and sat back on the chair, datapad forgotten in his lap. “I’m fine.”

Right. Anakin really wanted to push. That was all he wanted to do; but if he knew anything about his ori’vod, that wouldn’t do anything but devolve into one of a few different arguments. And he didn’t want to argue right now. Not when the Force and everything else was so close around him and everything felt warm and safe.

“How long was I out?” He asked instead.

“Around twelve hours. We’ve landed in Mos Eisley. Shmi wants to swing by the Wastes and see if the Morut has any work we can do on planet while we’re here. Something to integrate Rex.”

“Right. Anything for me to do?” Not that Anakin really wanted to do anything at the moment. For once.

“Not unless you’ve something you want to do. Just the usual maintenance, but I can do that on my own.” Ben’s voice was toned the way it was when he was resigned but trying to sound like he wasn’t.

“I’ll help out with that. Not like I’ve got anything better to do. No ‘saber to build, you know?” Not a chance in haran he was letting Ben do all of that alone. Anakin still felt wrong not having his full arsenal though.

“I’m sorry. You’ll find something. The Force works. Well, the Force works, you know that.”

Anakin smiled a little, sipping some more water. “Yeah. In the meantime, I’ll just work on the rest of my arsenal. I think I can up the output of those concussors.”

“Anakin, they’re already powerful enough as it is. We don’t want craters every time we use one of those.”

“It’s just theoretical.” Anakin hid the smile behind the water.

“It’s never just theoretical with you. If you really want to work on weapons, you should be helping Rex with the technical parts of lightsaber construction. Force knows you’re more of the expert on that than either of us.” Ben’s presence was closer over the bond than it’d been in weeks and Anakin drank it in.

Everything around them was gold laced with shadows of this royal purple color and he could see the reddish desert gold of the family bond strong and lit up, weaving through the clouds. The medbay was always weirdly pretty in the Force. Light healing worked better as a rule, but with their connection with the Force being what it was, some Dark was inevitable.

“What’s he got?”

“You should ask him that.”

“Okay, what’ve you got?”

Ben gave him a look before his face softened and he took out the crystal.

“I’ve got the casing designed and all of the parts together. It’s just a matter of putting it all in the right order.”

Anakin reached out and examined the crystal. It really did feel like Ben, just like his old one used to. This one felt a bit more tightly packed, though. More powerful.

“Purple again. Nice.”

“It’s appropriate, I think.”

///

Mos Eisley was an interesting place. Tatooine in general was interesting. Rex was from a water planet. However hot and dry Geonosis had been, Tatooine was on another level. The weight of his blasters on his thighs was very present and he kept checking them. The entire place was setting his gut off in a way that he hadn’t felt since the approach to Geonosis. He saw bounty hunters everywhere and smugglers besides. He hadn’t missed the near overwhelming population of slaves either. This was a Hutt world, so that wasn’t really all that surprising.

Also not surprising was the low level current of anger he felt from Ejasa whenever they crossed one of the more unfortunate ones. Rex wasn’t blind. The tension radiating from everyone who hadn’t been unconscious on the approach to Tatooine had been near cosmic. And people only ever got as angry and offended by something as this little aliit had about Rex and his brothers when it was personal. Which begged the question why coming back here was a good idea for them, but Rex wasn’t the brains here.

“Watch your step in this place,” Ejasa warned him before she turned into a cantina. She’d put on her full beskar’gam before they’d ventured out, and that wasn’t easing the sense that she expected trouble.

His eyes had to adjust to the dim, smoky lighting, and damn was there a lot of other stuff to adjust to. It was clear that this was where you went when you wanted to, indulge, for want of a better word. Rex saw some of the very illegal sort of rotgut type booze that the bounty hunters that trained him and his brothers used to drink. The stuff was guaranteed to melt brains almost as well as death sticks, and Rex would never be able to forget the smell. There was also spice, actual death sticks, and various other things flying around. The place was clean, but that really didn’t mean much and clean was a relative term anyway. Rex kept his hands away from his blasters and kept in a guard position behind Ejasa, feeling her amusement at where he chose to be. He eyed the rest of the patrons, counting the weapons he could see.

The Force was murky, and the Dark felt a lot less safe here. Like it was waiting to bite him or something. He kept himself cloaked, checking his shields again and running through all the sensations he was getting through it. The edge to the Dark felt more like it was something broken now that he was looking at it. Almost like someone had taken a vibroblade to something then tried to put it back together wrong, edges sticking out at odd angles and cutting into unaware hands.

He could sense the interest from some of the other people. Ejasa’s brown painted armor might not have been all that eye catching on its own; but the yellow and blue accents were, even without the strange black, green, and gold Mandalorian symbol painted on her right pauldron. That combined with there being no other people in Mandalorian style armor meant that people were paying attention to them. Most of those people looked like either bounty hunters or smugglers. Ejasa felt perfectly comfortable, but Rex didn’t miss the watchfulness underpinning it all.

She was scanning around, her presence opened to the crowd around them while she led him to one of the seats in a dim corner of the cantina. Rex felt the second she’d hit on whatever she was looking for. He went to turn and look, but Ejasa put up a hand.

“Feel for it. Open yourself up to the currents around us. Places like this aren’t the safest, but that flow of energy will tell you everything you need to know about them.”

Rex didn’t like the idea of letting himself sink into the Force in a place like this; that sounded like a good way to be caught off guard. But someone was watching his six, and he couldn’t deny that he was curious about what was there beyond what he’d already sensed.He let himself drift a little and felt the flow that Ejasa was talking about. It was a lot like the currents in the really deep parts of the ocean on Kamino, strong flows that shaped everything underneath a turbulent surface. He reached out further, a slight pressure in his head at the stretch, and felt a very small eddy, right where Ejasa had stopped.

“What is that?”

“That is someone we need to talk to,” she said, sounding proud.

“Right.”

Rex turned to look at the person in the eddy. They were dressed like a spacer and the blaster on their hip looked custom. The face said smuggler. They were human, but Rex couldn’t tell where from. They looked relaxed, but nobody whose hand was that close to their blaster was ever relaxed.

“Stay here.” Ejasa slipped out from her seat before Rex could get a word out.

Rex felt the Force move around Ejasa. It was weird, she didn’t disturb the currents at all. It was more like she was moving along in it, shields smoothing her into it so much that if Rex hadn’t had the training bond, he was positive he wouldn’t have been able to find her. With the training bond, he could feel how the Force gathered around her, curled around in a way that almost felt protective.

The smuggler tensed up as soon as Ejasa got within shouting distance and only got more tense as she got closer. By the time she was in the seat across from them, they looked like a piece of plastoid with how tight their muscles got. Their hand was resting on their blaster, skin whited out by how tight they were clenching the grip. Rex could sympathize. Beskar’gam came with some expectations. The eddy around them felt like it was frozen out under the tension, but he never would’ve known that from watching Ejasa.

She was holding herself in a way that was purposefully non-threatening, hand as far away from her visible weapons as possible. Rex noticed that didn’t include keeping her hand away from her vibroblade. She sat down across from the smuggler, body in the same sort of relaxed-on-purpose position he’d seen her use when the Council members came in when she’d still been allowed to openly visit Silas in the Healer’s Wing. After a few seconds, the smuggler’s hand came off their blaster and their entire posture relaxed. Rex felt the tension dropping out of his shoulders too as Ejasa’s hand got further away from her vibroblade.

He took advantage of the mask he’d borrowed from Silas (too much of risk to walk around looking like Jango on a planet like Tatooine) and watched them and the people going past them. The HUD didn’t have much to say outside of temperature (boiling, even in here), air quality (suspect ever since they’d gotten into the cantina), and Rex’s biometrics (steady), but Rex still kept an eye on the readout out of habit. He halfway wanted to see what the HUD on one of the Abiik-Kemir’s buckets looked like, but he wasn’t about to ask. The mask felt like enough of a violation of some sort of protocol he didn’t know about.

The conversation didn’t take very long, but Rex saw an exchange of comms information before Ejasa came back over to him.

“What happened?” He really was curious.

“We have a mutual friend. Or at least, they have a mutual friend with Silas. Apparently they might have a job they need someone like us to help them out with. Nothing major, but the earnings would be more than worth it if the intel is good.”

“You think it is?” Rex couldn’t help but be skeptical.

“This particular friend has a talent for getting information they shouldn’t have. He’s never been wrong about something like that as far as I know.” She settled, presence in the Force at ease.

“How did you learn to do that? Find the eddies?” Rex really didn’t think that would be something they’d bother to teach Hibir.

“Mostly through spending a lot of time listening. The Force is vocal when you pay attention. It’ll tell you almost anything you want to know if you’re patient and attentive. It doesn’t always speak in a way that’s immediately obvious, but it’s always talking. When you spend enough time listening, it’s like getting to know a person. You learn what it sounds like when it means something specific. What the differential is that tells you what the specific meaning is changes from person to person. But once you learn what you’re looking for, it’s hard to miss unless you’re not in the right frame of mind to hear it.”

The bond opened a bit from her end and Rex got the sense of _presence_ from the Force in her mind. It was almost like it was a physical thing inside of her head. He reached out in his own senses again, his head feeling like when he sat in the same position too long and then stretched out his legs. The world around them didn’t slip away like he was expecting. Everything got sharper and more defined like using a pair of electrobinoculars. Every sense felt stronger and he could feel the entire room from the door to the fresher. He could’ve walked through the whole thing blindfolded without running into a single thing. He’d felt like this before, but only ever in training or combat. Not ever just sitting around like he was now.

“This is what it’s always supposed to be like?” He couldn’t stop looking around at everything like a shiny.

“It’ll take a while for you to get to the point that you can be this submerged by yourself without overdrawing, but yes. Part of you is made to view the world like this; and as you learn, it’ll become more and more natural to use the Force as not only a sense of its own, but to enhance your other senses.”

He could taste the smoke in the air, smell the different drinks around them. Even the strange feeling of the mask sitting on his skin and the new clothes he was wearing were enhanced. Rex sat in it and listened to the hum of the crystals in his and Ejasa’s pockets underneath the clamor of all the voices in the cantina.

///

Anakin hadn’t been planning to do anything stupid when he’d sat down to meditate. But then, he never actively planned to be an idiot when it happened. It just sort of happened and then he had to deal with it. That aside, sensing not only a Jedi but someone who needed to be killed with extreme prejudice at the same time when he’d let himself stretch out had really left him with no other option but to be stupid. Whatever the demagolka was doing with that hut’uun Jabba, he wasn’t going to let him get away this time.

So he’d scrambled. He’d been in his beskar with as many of his weapons as he could fit tucked away and swinging himself onto a speeder in under five minutes. He felt the Dark feeding on his rage and knew that letting it sit like that was a bad idea, but he was too angry to care. The air was filled with the glacial presence of the Dark and he saw it coiling around him in serpent like spirals of navy, black, and a deep, dark, bloody red. The Light was separated from it in a way it never normally was, like opposite poles of a magnet, bright white and sandy brown of life on Tatooine staying far away from the Dark. He pulled on both anyway, the Light feeling slippery and hard to grasp, and layered himself under another cloak and behind more shields than he’d had around his mind since they’d left the Temple.

The feeling of his Buir, Ben, and Rex fading behind the shields set his nerves jangling and made him feel like a piece of him was missing, but he couldn’t do anything about that. Not if he wanted to do what he was going to do. It was a long enough ride that they’d notice he was gone and might start to look for him, but that was fine. It wasn’t like they’d think he was dead. 

He knew this was a stupid thing to do. He’d had a hard time beating Dooku when he was barely hurt at all and had a lightsaber.But he’d gone after enough people who were as good as Dooku in their own type of combat to know that they tended to forget to watch out for things like a good rifle blaster with a really good scope. Anakin wasn’t stupid or reckless enough to forget about that with how his aliit lived. But he was willing to bet the Force-damned Count was arrogant enough to not even take something like that into account. Anakin might like hand to hand and armed combat better than a blaster, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a damned good shot.

He was going to reintroduce the good Count to what kind of damage a blaster bolt could do.

///

Wolffe wasn’t sure what it was that made him go get General Koon. The air had started feeling off somehow, and it wasn’t just the things he saw Jabba’s people doing to what he was sure were slaves down where he’d been told to stay. That said, he was glad he did, because two guys dressed in Mandalorian beskar’gam armed to the teeth and arguing with each other was not something Wolffe wanted to test his training against. His gut told him that messing with either of them was a very bad idea. The surprise Wolffe saw from his General didn’t make him feel any better about the situation at all.

Belatedly, Wolffe realized that General Koon probably couldn’t understand the conversation, given the Mando’a. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, Wolffe would’ve thought it was some of his vode arguing with the attitude both of them were giving each other.

“Tion’jor narir gar vaabir kebise sa ibic, di’kut!” The one in the silver armor with the Coruscanti accent yelled.

“Ni ne kar’taylir, ori’vod. Tion’ad ash ru’ba’jurir ni?” The one in the black armor had his back to them, and that was a very nice blaster rifle that Wolffe really wanted to get off of him as soon as possible.

“Excuse me,” General Koon interrupted.

The one in the silver armor looked over. “Haar’chak! Haa’taylir tion mhi linibar koor ti jii?”

Wolffe could almost hear the one in black winding up to say something else, but General Koon stepped in. “I’m not going to drag you back to the Temple, Ben. I’d just like to talk to you and your brother.”

Oh. That explained so much. Wolffe wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t deaf. He’d heard a lot of rumors circulating around the 104th from pretty much every other battalion they’d come in contact with about what had happened to Torrent Company while they were “stationed” in the Jedi Temple. All of the stories were different, but that three refugees had escaped and taken a brother with them was the only point everyone agreed on. That General Koon avoided being on Coruscant said a lot about how nasty the whole thing got in Wolffe’s opinion. Still, he hadn’t expected to come in contact with the subjects of those rumors. Did that mean Rex was somewhere on-planet?

If so, that really wasn’t good. Wolffe had no desire to drag the vod back to be courtmartialed. Everyone knew that if someone deserted and got found, they’d be scrapped. He really didn’t want to do that to Torrent. Maybe if he saw him he could pretend Rex had been kidnapped? That he hadn’t been able to get him back? This group was already seen as dangerous anyway. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Or, if General Koon didn’t see him, he could pretend that Rex was never there. That was the best option, but Wolffe had a nasty feeling that wasn’t how this was going to go down.

“That wasn’t how things wound up at the Temple; and you’ll forgive me if I don’t trust any of you other than Healer Che or Master Jinn not to try and kill my brother again.” Ben had put himself between General Koon and his brother.

“I swear on my oath as a Jedi that I will not harm you or your brother, Ben. There were questions that should have been asked that weren’t because of the Council’s decision. Not everyone on the Council agreed with that decision, and I believe it’s more important to find out what was done to you than it is to punish you and your family for something you had no choice in.” General Koon was as unruffled as ever and Wolffe didn’t understand how he wasn’t shocked by any of this. Then again, jetiise were weird about things he thought would be upsetting to a nat-born.

The two turned to each other and looked like they had some sort of private conversation before Ben shook his head, his bucket's mike not quite picking up what Wolffe thought might be a sigh.

“Okay, Jedi. We’ll talk, but not here. You have a comm?” Ben’s brother got closer to them and Wolffe put a hand on his blaster.

“Yes.” General Koon _still_ wasn’t even twitching towards his lightsaber.

“Meet us at these coordinates at dusk tomorrow.” He turned his comm display towards General Koon and waited until the General nodded before turning back to his brother.

Wolffe waited until they got back on their speeders and disappeared before asking General Koon the question burning on his tongue.

“General, why aren’t you bringing them in?”

“I don’t sense any true ill intent in them or their family, Commander Wolffe. I don’t believe treating them like enemies will do anything other than turn them into enemies. There is a truth to be heard here, and I am interested in finding out what the Force will reveal. It may cast light on your own situation as well.”

Wolffe hadn’t missed the occasional notes of guilt from the General. He was well aware that there were jetiise who saw his brothers as sub-human; and that wasn’t even touching how the civilians saw them. He believed, deep in his bones, that the 104th had gotten extremely lucky getting assigned to General Koon. But he didn’t want his General to get injured or killed for their sake; and meeting with this family felt like a risk to Wolffe.

“I’ll want you at the meeting as well, Wolffe. Jabba has made his position on you and the rest of the clones clear. Leaving any of you here would be a mistake I think.”

“Yes, General Koon.”

Something about this felt like it would be very important. Wolffe just hoped that whatever happened, it wouldn’t wind up pitting him against one of the only brothers who’d been able to say no and get away with it. He wasn’t sure he’d survive having to kill a brother, deserter or no.

///

“ _Anakin_!” Ben’s voice was strained and his eyes were wide and wild.

“What was I supposed to do? He-that, that skanah _demagolka_ is on Tatooine, right now! Whatever I would’ve done, he would’ve deserved _worse_! Not a chance, not a single chance in kriffing _haran_ I was letting him slip away again! Not after what he did.” Anakin felt like he was on fire. He was a breeze away from pulling his hair out and he could still _feel_ Dooku crawling around on-planet like some kind of kriffing slimy, venomous creature from the pits of the Corellian hells.

“Anakin, you’re still not well! He’s armed! He’s completely healthy! And don’t forget that he used to be a Jedi Master! Whatever plan you had would’ve wound up with you _dead_ in the Wastes somewhere! Or worse! Whatever else you do, I will _never_ be okay with you dying or being enslaved, _again_ for me! Ever! It’s bad enough what he made me-what happened last time. I can’t. Don’t you-can’t you _see_? If he killed you-there was no way you were going to come out of that on top. Not a single chance. I won’t-I _can’t_ bury you, vod’ika. It would _kill_ me and your Buir if we had to do that.” Ben looked away, eyes wet.

Anakin felt a stab of guilt, bitter and biting but any of that was minuscule compared to the overwhelming fury at Dooku.

“I can’t just _let_ him walk away! Even if the Jedi catch him, you know that they’ll never do anything more than what they did to us, and that’s not even _close_ to enough! What he did to you-what he put you through-what happened. He can’t just walk away from that! I can’t let him just walk away from that! You can’t ever go after him, but I can. And I’m not going to let him just keep on going and thinking he’s gotten away with it if I can make him _pay_. Whatever else, I’m not just going to sit by after what he put you through. You’re my _brother_!”

“And that’s why I can’t let you do that! You’re my brother! I won’t let him hurt you like he hurt me. If he had those codes, then it’s only reasonable to assume he know how to do what was done to me. And I would die before I let someone do that to _anyone_ else, but especially you or Shmi!”

The Force was churning around both of them like a sandstorm, too many colors lighting up Anakin’s vision to even name. The bond was wide open to the point that he couldn’t tell his own rage and guilt apart from Ben’s. It was all too much and Anakin felt his control snap.

“What do you _want_? Ever since Geonosis, you haven’t talked to me! Not about anything that actually matters! He destroyed our _family_ -how we lived, and I have to just sit here and be fine with either letting Buir go after him with Rex as her only backup, or just letting him get away? That’s what’s worth finally talking to me? Everything that’s happened since Geonosis, every single thing, is his fault. If you’re asking me to be okay not doing a kriffing thing about it, then I’m sorry, but there isn’t a universe where that’s something I’m going to be able to do! Not after what happened to you.”

Anakin felt the tears start to fall and realized somewhere in the back of his head that he hadn’t cried since Geonosis. He hadn’t had _time_. And how karking typical was it that he cried _now_ when he really didn’t have the time or energy for it? Ben had drawn back like Anakin’d slapped him. The bond was rife with guilt, and Anakin genuinely couldn’t tell whose it was at this point.

He was so _tired_ ; how kriffed up was it that he was the one crying and breaking down when he was arguably the person who’d suffered the least here?

Somehow he’d wound up sitting on the floor, leaning on Ben, sobbing so hard he couldn’t breath.

Slowly, he calmed down enough to feel Ben trying to help over the bond. His well ordered, ocean-like presence was washing over the bond in waves of Light colors and soothing energy. The guilt was back, still as bitter and biting as ever, and Anakin was choking on it. This wasn’t how this was _ever_ supposed to go. Any version of this was supposed to be as calm as he and his ori’vod ever managed to be about something serious. It wasn’t _supposed_ to be them screaming at each other in the training room and Anakin having a breakdown on the one person who shouldn’t have to support anyone else but himself right now.

“Don’t do that.” Ben’s voice was so foreign in the wash of Force communication they’d been using that it took Anakin a second to put together how words were supposed to work again.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” His voice was so rough and shattered Anakin was surprised that it worked at all.

“I know. I know what it’s like to have things rip you apart like that. I’d know better than anyone, Anakin. If you really haven’t had the chance to deal with Geonosis yet, then I’m shocked that this didn’t happen earlier. Don’t you dare apologize or feel guilty for crying or anything else. As we’ve said for the millionth and first time, I’m your _brother_. Whatever I’m going through, that doesn’t mean that I won’t try to be there for any of you as much as I can. I can’t trust myself; and that’s not your fault. That’s something I have to figure out how to do again. If anything, I should be the one apologizing here. I didn’t realize how that was coming across, and the last thing I wanted was to hurt you again.” Ben’s voice stuttered on the last sentence and Anakin pressed harder into his side, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow.

“Don’t start with that blaming yourself for someone else’s poodoo. Geonosis wasn’t your fault. I never thought it was and you weren’t responsible for any of that.” Anakin ignored the twinge of pain in his arm where it’d been broken. It wasn’t the worst break he’d ever had by far, but the Force suppressants had made his healing slow to a crawl and he was pretty sure it was going to wind up being more sensitive than any of his other breaks. Even the ones that hadn’t healed quite right.

“Knowing that and believing it are two different things, Anakin. And I still did all of it. Just. Give me time, okay?” Ben sounded as tired and empty as Anakin felt.

They stayed leaning against each other for long enough that Buir came in to find them.

They hadn’t commed her or even called over the bond about the meeting with Master Koon. Where did they even begin to try and explain the mess they were in now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Ori’vod-Older Brother/Sibling  
> Morut-Stronghold  
> Haran-Hell  
> Aliit-Family  
> Beskar’gam-Armor, in this case made of Beskar  
> Demagolka-War criminal, real life monster  
> Hut’uun-Coward  
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings  
> Tion’jor narir gar vaabir kebise sa ibic, di’kut!-Why do you do things like this, idiot!  
> Ni ne kar’taylir, ori’vod. Tion’ad ash ru’ba’jurir ni? -I don’t know, older brother. Who else taught me?  
> Haar’chak! Haa’taylir tion mhi linibar koor ti jii?-Damn it! See what we need to deal with now?  
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Jetiise-Jedi (plural)  
> Skanah-Most hated thing or person  
> Vod’ika-Little Brother/Sibling
> 
> So, the “Anakin Does Something Really Stupid” had to happen eventually. At least he was kind of prevented from carrying through with it, though. Wolffe is tricky. I’m not quite sure I got the right handle on him, but he’s around. Plo Koon has become one of my favorite Prequel and Clone Wars era Jedi. He’s a just a really cool character. Plus he was one of the Jedi who really cared about the clones, so I give extra points for that.


	7. Back to the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a meeting and some harebrained decisions are made.

The twilit space port was full of the exact same types of beings as Jabba’s palace. Wolffe kept close behind General Koon, an eye out on everyone that got within spitting distance. This entire thing was settling in his gut in a bad way. Nothing seemed wrong, or more wrong than a place like Mos Eisley ever got, but something was happening here. Wolffe knew it. What wasn’t clear was if it was from their last conversation with Jabba or if it was from here. Either way, something was off and Wolffe wasn’t about to get caught off guard.

General Koon turned into the cantina from the coordinates. Wolffe looked around, more than a little surprised at how little was going on that usually went on in places like this. His eyes caught on the beings they were there for in a dim corner of the cantina, as far back from the bar and other people as they could get. The armor had been exchanged for normal rough-spun desert wear and masks, but there wasn’t any doubt that they were the same people. Even if he hadn’t been able to tell, Wolffe would recognize a brother anywhere. No matter what they hid behind.

The tension was almost a physical thing as he and General Koon sat across from the four of them. Wolffe checked over them. There were weapons, both visible and not, on all of them. General Koon acted like he hadn’t seen hands reaching for belts, boots, and sleeves. Wolffe left the tact to the Jedi and did his job, counting the arsenal spread out between them. They could probably arm the entire cantina. If Wolffe thought this was a bad idea before, this wasn’t helping prove him wrong. He did keep his eyes off of his brother. There was a chance, however slim, that General Koon hadn’t picked up on him being one of the vode. If he hadn’t, Wolffe wasn’t going to be the one to tip him off unless he had no other choice.

“Good evening,” General Koon greeted them.

“Good evening, Master Jedi.” The woman’s voice was layered with suspicion. Wolffe swore he could feel all of their eyes on him.

“This is Commander Wolffe, my second in command. I’m afraid that our previous arrangements weren’t well suited to this being a completely private meeting.” General Koon sounded genuinely apologetic. Wolffe kept his eyes on them anyway. Not even a twitch from any of them.

“Nice to meet you, Wolffe.”

He startled a bit, not expecting any of them to talk to him, least of all the (apparent) leader.

“Good to meet you too, ma’am.” Wolffe caught himself out reaching for “sir” at the last second. From what he knew, civilian women didn’t appreciate that.

She nodded at him anyway and he got the sense that they were all looking at him again. He focused on Ben, keeping his eyes away from her. At this point, Wolffe wasn’t sure how he felt about Hibir being a Jedi once. It made a weird sort of sense, but the holos of him were very different from Wolffe’s experience of Jedi, limited as it may be. In any case, Ben was sat the furthest away from everyone else next to his brother, which left Wolffe sitting the closest to his own brother he was trying to pretend wasn’t his brother at the moment. It was a good thing they hadn’t brought Sinker. If he’d been here, Wolffe never would’ve heard the end of it.

“Let’s get to business. Ben and Silas said you had some things you wanted to discuss.” Her voice was professional. This wasn’t the first time she’d sat down like this.

“Indeed. I had some questions I’d hoped you could answer for me. I have no plans to return any of you to Coruscant or the Order at the moment. While that may be necessary eventually, right now it would only be detrimental to both sides. As things currently stand, that won’t happen in the foreseeable future. At least, not by my hand.” General Koon met her where she stood, voice relaxed, and sounding for all the world like he was discussing the weather.

“What are you planning to do with what we tell you?”

The tension ratcheted up again with the question. None of them moved, but Wolffe got the weirdest sensation like all of them leaned forward to hear the answer; even the brother.

“It depends on what you tell me. If it’s anything that could be relevant to finding out what happened to Ben, then there are certain people who would have to be informed.”

“Like who?” Silas spoke up this time. Wolffe really didn’t like that he couldn’t tell where any of them were looking, especially with their hands so close to their weapons.

“We have a Knight looking into a connection to Ben’s disappearance on Kamino. Most likely, he would be the one I would tell whatever it was in addition to Master Jinn.” Why General Koon was being so transparent was beyond Wolffe. These people weren’t GAR and gods only knew who they were loyal to. Two of them may technically be brothers, but that didn’t change them being dangerous. Still, that wasn’t his call, was it?

The four were quiet for a second too long and Wolffe saw General Koon’s head tilt. That figured. Force poodoo. What else was there when Jedi were involved? He took the risk of glancing at the brother. Blond. That settled it. There was no one else that could be. Maybe some of the rumors weren’t so far fetched after all. That wasn’t what was making Wolffe’s gut twist, though. There was something else, something just out of reach.

“Okay. Ask your questions, we’ll see if we can clear some things up.” The woman took the lead again.

///

It had to be Wolffe. Of course it did. Rex was grateful for the idea of keeping their faces covered now. He hadn’t seen Wolffe since before Geonosis. The brother looked like he was doing fine, at least; but that didn’t really mean much under the circumstances. Wolffe’s eyes stayed on their hands and away from Rex except for the one quick glance when General Koon was distracted. There were enough nerves and resignation coming off him in droves to make Rex’s own stomach turn. The Abiik-Kemirs were keeping very quiet about a brother showing up, but there had been a lot of conversation going back and forth through the bond since the two had come in the door.

“How did you come across Ben?” General Koon’s question made everyone nervous enough that Rex focused back on what they’d come here to do. Now was not the time to get distracted, no matter which brother was here. Besides, Rex was kind of curious about that too.

“It was more a case of us coming across each other. Silas found him badly injured just inside the limits of Mos Espa and brought him back to our home at the time. He’s been with us ever since.”

Rex could feel how much of an oversimplification Ejasa’s answer was, the sensation of old wounds and desperation going through the bond before being dealt with however they all did that sort of thing.He looked at the three of them out of the corner of the mask’s display.

“And you didn’t know who he was?” General Koon’s voice gave nothing away except polite interest.

“No. After he started regaining what memories he could, it was clear that whatever he’d been forced to do was completely against his will. He’s family, and he’d been through more than anyone should have to. Whatever and whoever he’d been before didn’t matter. Who he is now is what matters.” Ejasa’s voice left no room for argument. Rex felt them drawing into each other through the bond.

Wolffe’s head jerked and his eyes were on Rex again. It was only a split second again, but the curiosity was there. If there was a way to talk to him away from General Koon, Rex had to find it. As good as Cody, Stacks, and Bins were, there was no way they could clear the whole GAR without some help. Rex had a good feeling about letting Wolffe in on what was going on; but he had to find a way to talk to him first. Rex looked at General Koon. He was hard to read, given the breathing mask and goggles and all. His Force presence felt foggy through the cloak, and from what he’d learned in the Temple, Jedi didn’t project the same as everyone else anyway.

“Is Captain Rex here of his own accord?”

Rex jumped, looking over at General Koon before the question even processed. He felt Wolffe’s eyes on him, the rest of the Abiik-Kemirs paying close attention over the bond. Rex hadn’t expected General Koon to ask about him, even if he realized it was him. He and his brothers were designed to be replaceable after all. There wasn’t any reason for a Jedi to follow up on one clone who went missing, officer or not.

“Yes sir. They didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.” Might as well stick his whole self in the incinerator.

Wolffe turned to look at him, eyes sweeping over Rex. He could feel the sudden fear and resignation in the Force, hidden behind the shields they’d been taught on Kamino, but still spilling into it anyway. It hadn’t seemed like the General was doing anything to Wolffe or his men, but if that was the reaction, then maybe Rex needed to do something after all. He felt the Abiik-Kemirs locking onto the same thing he had, all of their attention on Wolffe and General Koon.

“As long as it was your choice, Captain. You were not one of my men. I’m not going to bring you anywhere against your will.” General Koon was as relaxed as he’d been the whole conversation. It wasn’t possible that he’d miss something as clear as Wolffe’s projections in the Force.

Wolffe, for his part, relaxed in increments so small anybody but a brother would’ve missed it. His head was still tilted towards the General, but he wasn’t bothering to keep his eyes off of Rex anymore. Rex tried to project that he was _fine_. Really, he had less to worry about than Wolffe did at this point. Whatever Rex was doing, inside the GAR was a way more dangerous place for any brother than outside of it. He still couldn’t quite make out what General Koon wanted out of all of this. He’d been telling the truth when he said he wasn’t going to drag them back, and those questions didn’t seem like they were worth the risk.

The General moved like he was about to ask another question when his comm went off.

“Please excuse me.” The General left to answer. Wolffe went to follow, but stayed put at a signal from the General.

Wolffe was staring at Rex like he couldn’t decide what to think.

_Are you going to tell him?_ Silas asked over the bond.

_Cody needs help. Wolffe was always good at finding a way around things without getting in trouble. If there’s a brother who can start helping others get free, it’s Wolffe._ The Force was practically hitting Rex over the head with a block of durasteel about this.

_Be careful_. Said Ben.

“I’m going to get a drink. You coming, vod?”

Wolffe looked at him, confused. Rex motioned at the Abiik-Kemirs and nodded at him before saying, “I’ll buy.”

Wolffe nodded, side eyeing them before getting up to follow Rex to the bar.

“Have you seen Cody lately?” Rex shot for casual, but he was worried. That message had been received, but Bins finding it didn’t mean his ori’vod was alive.

“No, but scuttlebutt said they were heading for Christophsis last I heard. Rex, is there something you actually want to talk to me about?” Wolffe had an eye on the door.

“Have you had anyone do an atomic level brain scan on any of our brothers?”

Wolffe looked like he wanted to say something about Rex’s choice of words, but he moved on.

“No, why would I do that?” The suspicion coming off Wolffe wasn’t making Rex feel like the Force was right about this. It was too late now, though.

“When we reached Naboo, the docs there did an in depth exam on me. Part of their regulations with intake like ours. They found a mass in my head, buried in my brain where nothing but an atomic level brain scan would pick it up. It was tiny, the size of my thumbnail, but they thought it might be. Well, they thought it might be a problem so they took it out. The doc said it didn’t look like any tumor they’d ever seen. Silas took one look at the damned thing and said that it looked like some kind of chip. I don’t know what they’re supposed to do, but I’ve been fine without it. Whatever it is, I’ve got a really bad feeling about it. I already warned Cody, but you need to get it out of you and your men as soon as you can. If I had a chip, it’s only reasonable to assume that we all do.”

Wolffe’s face transformed from skepticism to horror as soon as Rex put the chip in front of him. It looked harmless, but it radiated _wrong_ in the Force like nothing else. Silas had offered to try and slice the thing, but Rex hadn’t wanted to lose the only solid evidence he had that could change someone’s mind. He also wasn’t sure he’d ever want to know what he could’ve been forced to do.

“And that’s. Do you know anything else?” Wolffe picked up the container the chip was in and was holding it like he expected to get stung.

“No. I only have the one, and I need to hold onto it for now. But if Cody, Stacks, and Bins are working off what Ben and I told them, then the 212th is already looking into it.”

“And you think all of us, that we, have this _thing_ in our heads?” Wolffe looked right where the scar from the surgery was hidden under Rex’s hood.

“I know all of us do. Call it a gut feeling, but I know it’s there.” Rex didn’t want to pry as deep as he’d have to go into Wolffe’s signature to try and find it. But if the chip radiated like that then it was hiding in every vod’s signature. Something the Jedi would think was natural.

“I think you’re right.” Wolffe sounded like he couldn’t believe the words that’d just come out of his mouth and his face looked the same.

“Get a scan. Get it taken out. Do it as soon as possible and get the rest of your men through as fast as you can.”

Wolffe looked up at him, then his eyes flicked at the door.

“We have to get back to the table.”

He handed Rex the chip and led the way, nodding to the General before sitting down. Rex did the same, letting the Abiik-Kemirs know that it was fine. They receded a bit from the bond before their attention was on General Koon again.

“What can you tell me about the assassin you encountered on Naboo?” The question was such a non sequitur that Rex felt everyone but Ejasa stutter over it.

“What does that have to do with Ben?”

“She was seen recently on an active battlefield. I was told to ask you if you could provide any advice in recapturing her.”

“You can’t,” Silas said, hands making an aborted movement to pick at his bracer.

“Why not? You seemed to do well by yourselves.” Rex could feel General Koon probing around all of them in the Force.

“She’s got the same kind of training as Ben. Whoever trained her, they trained her to be a Jedi killer. A Dark Sider might stand a fair fight. You might stand a fair fight if you can surprise her. But really, unless you can hide from her in the Force and jump her with luck on your side and weapons, you’re in for a hell of a fight. And she’ll probably win.” Silas sounded like he was just figuring out the first part for himself. They hadn’t said anything about an assassin to Rex when they’d been on Naboo before. When had that happened?

“You know how to hide. You’ve beaten her before. She’s leading an attack on Jedi right now. Do you think you could catch her again if the opportunity presented itself?” General Koon was still frustratingly opaque, but Rex didn’t like where that line of questioning was going.

“By myself? Right now? Probably not.” The unspoken ‘and that’s your fault’ fell in the middle of Silas’s bitter tone.

General Koon didn’t address it. “You and Ben?”

Ben twitched towards Silas. _That’s not a good idea._

_I know, but I remember that fight. With another person who can hide and ambush her, it could work. But alone? My arm won’t stand up to that._ The caf-bitter anger at that coated the bond.

_Leaving her out there isn’t an option, and just letting the Jedi catch her isn’t one either. If she’s like Ben then they won’t let her go and they won’t give her the treatment she’ll need._ Ejasa was the voice of reason. Rex was starting to see a trend with that.

_I don’t think. Me being around the Jedi isn’t a good idea right now._ Ben sounded apologetic, but over the bond there was a very real sense of anxiety.

_I could go._ They all pulled up short at Rex’s offer. It was the smart thing to do. He was trained to fight, he knew how to hide, and it would give him a chance to help Wolffe start figuring out the chip situation. Plus, the Abiik-Kemirs might stick out, but Rex was still a clone. There wasn’t anywhere he could blend in better than surrounded by his brothers around people who didn’t know them very well.

_That’s…a good point. Are you sure you’d be up for something like that?_ Ejasa didn’t look at him, but she was suddenly very immediate and close in the bond.

Rex hesitated. He knew he wasn’t anywhere near close to being able to take a fully trained Force User. But he wouldn’t be alone, and he’d seen the arsenal Silas had stockpiled. It was simple.

_Yes._

///

Cody charged for cover, legs burning, lungs on fire, blaster clutched so tightly in his hands that he could feel his knuckles cracking on it. The clankers had hit the city hard. Nova and Green battalions were as organized as could be expected. The loss of their heavy artillery had been a major blow to their defenses.

Slick had screwed them.

They’d managed to hold the really important line somehow, but it was coming at a very heavy price. Even with four Jedi on the front with them, brothers were falling everywhere. Cody could see General Jinn holding down part of the line, blaster bolts ricocheting off his lightsaber into the droids. The sound of another lightsaber whirling somewhere nearby was just audible over the sounds of the ever-marching droids, blaster fire, and brothers' voices. He fired mechanically, not bothering to even try to count the tinnies he’d taken down.

Aim.

Fire.

Check if the clanker fell.

Wash.

Rinse.

Repeat.

They were still holding the line, General Jinn to the right with Stacks, Commander Tano to the left with Sheer. Green was holding somewhere farther West, but the display wasn’t exactly helpful at the moment. Cody ducked under cover to change out his charge pack, his brothers moving in to cover the temporary opening. Cody couldn’t even spare the brainpower to be proud of them. There had to be a way to push the Seppies back long enough to get some kind of reinforcements down to the planet. There was an entire legion in orbit for kriff’s sake! They shouldn’t be screwed for men like this.

“Do we still have those mass droid poppers?” Stacks’ voice was strained over the comm.

“Yeah, what’re you thinking vod?” Cody motioned for the men with him to make a run for a cover a few meters ahead. Any bit of distance recovered was something saved. All this had to be for something, even if it was as worthless as a few kriffing meters.

He led the charge, laying down as heavy of fire with the men at his side as he could. Their heavy gunner was yelling some sort of battle cry through the entire sprint and went down less than half a meter from cover with a blaster bolt burning a hole through his chest. The shame of not even knowing his name was something Cody didn’t have time for, and if that wasn’t twice as bad.

“If we can plant them along the line and set them off, it’ll make this much easier to hold. We’ve already got runners volunteered here and Commander Tano says she can make the run with General Jinn’s go ahead,” Stacks said.

“General Jinn?” Cody didn’t have the chance to look down at them again while asking. The commandos were closing in, joints squeaking in a way that was somehow louder than everything else. A blaster bolt landed way too close to his arm, heat leaching though the plastoid of his armor almost hot enough to burn.

One two shot and the thing went down with two more popping up in its place.

It was endless.

“You’re clear to make the run. Ahsoka, cover the men as best you can. Captain Sheer, you hold that section of the line. Commander Cody, what’s the status of the rest of the line?”

Cody ducked under the debris they were hiding behind to check the display, not looking at the burned brother next to him who was holding an arm that looked like it’d been fried against his chest, shivering like he was on an ice planet. Red Seppie lines covered the display, pressing against the Republic blue in uneven ins and outs like some sort of jagged coastline. They were all in sort of the same place on the line. Green Battalion was a little further out, but then again, they’d started with more men in the first place, anyway.

“It’s holding for now, sir. What are your orders?” Cody turned back towards the clankers that just wouldn’t stop coming. Metal footsteps pounded in his skull in time with the recoils from his blaster.

“Don’t give anything away. We have to draw back in a way that looks organic. I’ll organize the men falling back. I want you to take stock of what we have left of Nova Battalion and report back to me. I need to know what resources we still have here and Captain Sheer is down.”

“Yes sir.” Another pit opened in Cody’s chest. He started to wonder if all of his organs were going to fall into them before today was over. He didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

He took stock of the men around him. They were all Ghost Company. At least a quarter of them had been shinies when Cody had joined them. They weren’t shiny anymore. Wooley had been holding the group together by the skin of his teeth. There weren’t enough of them to make any kind of solid run for anything. They didn’t have any kind of heavy gunner, just standard pistols and blasters. It wasn’t enough. It had to be.

“Alright men. We’re going to need to time this carefully! We’re going to be some of the last to pull back. It’s imperative that we hold this part of the line until we’re ordered back. I need to get Gregor, Lights, and Marr on the comms and get a read on everyone. Whatever you do, do _not_ let a single clanker get past this line. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir!”

The reports from what remained of Torrent were grim. Ghost, Phantom, and Spectre were all hurting, but not anywhere near as bad as them. Cody had never wanted to put a bolt between a brother’s eyes before; but he was having a hard time coming up with reasons not to let the remnants of Torrent get to Slick.

Just one gunship or walker would’ve made all the difference.

Cody heard the runners coming before Commander Tano landed in front of their little band, lightsaber an emerald blur in front of her.

Brothers with Spectre Company’s symbol on their armor started rigging the mass popper behind their tiny shelter. Cody hunkered down in front of them, getting as many shots off at the clankers through the Commander’s defense as possible. He saw how heavily she was breathing and tried to figure out if he should say something. According to the reports he’d been getting, they’d run about a third of the line, but she was alone in covering them while they made the runs. That couldn’t be sustainable.

“Commander Tano, are you alright, sir?”

The Commander didn’t look at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. There’s just a lot of droids.”

Cody heard the barely restrained panic that was always in everyone’s voice when something like this happened. He let himself be angry again that sending people who weren’t equipped to handle things like this to the front was okay by the Council he’d heard so much about in the Temple. There wasn’t a damned thing that anger could do, but he put it into wrecking the droids through the relative safety of the lightsaber. He didn’t bother asking anything else. When someone was in that state, they either pulled through or they didn’t. There wasn’t a damned thing Cody could do, but he really hoped the Commander could pull through.

“Done Commander!” One of the men who’d come with her yelled.

“Alright men, get ready to move!”

They pulled together in a blur of activity that blended in with the ever-present marching and blaster fire and then they were gone. The mass popper sat armed and ready, forcing Cody’s group closer to the edges of their cover than he liked.

Cody heard the sound before he saw it. The choked sound of a Seppie tank that’d gotten too close.

He was yelling for everyone to take cover, but it wasn’t soon enough.

The shot landed.

Cody’s ears were ringing and his vision was whited out.

The first thing he heard was a brother screaming another’s name, Pike, over and over. The first thing he saw was an arm next to him. And nothing else. Cody didn’t look for anything else, but he saw the rest of the brother’s upper body cradled in another’s lap. His ears hurt and everything was fuzzy. All he could hear was ringing, “Pike”, blaster fire, and marching. Still marching.

It wasn’t that he didn’t notice that his head was aching and his arm hurt right where there was a joint in the plating. It was that he didn’t have time to pay attention to that right now. They had to take out that tank.

Now where was it.

“Wooley, find the tank.” His voice was weirdly loud to his ears.

“Yes sir.” At least Wooley’s voice made it through the ringing.

Cody choked down the spit pooling in his mouth and the sick crawling up his throat.

He wasn’t throwing up in his helmet, and his helmet wasn’t coming off.

“I see it.”

The coordinates were on Cody’s HUD a second later. He sent off them off with an order to the heavy canons to fire on the thing if they got a clear shot. The confirmation went right through his ears with the signal from General Jinn for his group to pull back.

“Fall back, men!” Cody dropped back behind cover, switching out his charge pack while he was at it.

The brother who’d been holding most of what was left of Pike hadn’t moved, still clutching him to his chest.

“Come on, Spire. We have to go, now!” Another brother pulled on his arm but Spire shrugged him off, pulling what was left of Pike’s body closer to his chest.

Cody felt the countdown coming, beats of his heart marking out the seconds in his ears. He motioned for them to go ahead. The brother pulling at Spire hesitated, but left when Wooley primed everyone to make the run for the cover they’d left when this whole leg of the nightmare started.

Cody squatted next to him, the same tremors running through his body reflected in Cody’s hands now that there wasn’t any reason to keep them still.

“We have to go, Spire.” He kept his voice as gentle and quiet as he could under the circumstances. “You have to fall back. Survive for your vod. As long as there is someone who remembers him, nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la. Don’t kill him twice.”

Spire shuddered, but he let the death grip he had on Pike’s body relax.

A couple of seconds they couldn’t afford and Spire let go completely and got ready to make the run. Cody ducked behind him.

“On my mark, we run. You go as fast as you can while Wooley’s group and I lay cover. You got that Wooley?”

“Loud and clear.”

Another second and the opening Cody was looking for came.

“Go, go, go!”

Cody started firing, paying as little attention as he could to bolts that hit something too close to him. It only took a few seconds, but a few seconds surrounded by the dead were something Cody could’ve lived without. Not that he expected to, but it was still something he could’ve done with not having in his head.

“Spire is clear,” Wooley reported.

“Okay.”

Cody took in the dead around him before steeling himself and moving Pike’s arm back where it belonged. He didn’t know where the rest of him was or have the strength or time to move him all back together even if he did. But he wasn’t leaving a brother completely blown apart like that.

He checked one more time, trying to memorize the scene.

A breath.

A window opened.

“Cover me.”

The order was out of his mouth as he was sprinting for the rest of the group.

His legs burned with his chest. His stomach churned and cramped, spit still flooding his mouth and vomit still eating into his throat. His head was pounding. His ears were still ringing. Nothing mattered right now but getting to cover.

Those seconds felt like another lifetime, his breaths and the pounding of his feet and heart all he could hear.

He rolled into the divot in the road, almost smashing into Wooley on his way in.

Not a second too soon.

The poppers went off and what used to be their line went up in violet arcs that crackled through the air like lightning.

The ground shook as the heavy canons set off a barrage of shots that tore up the remains of the Seppie battalion. Cody even managed to muster up satisfaction at the sight of another tank exploding. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

“The Seppies’re falling back.”

Cody looked at the group of his brothers, a third of them missing.

This wasn’t over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings  
> Vod-Singular of above  
> Ori’vod-Older Sibling/Brother  
> Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la-Not gone, merely marching far away. Tribute to the fallen.
> 
> I would like to offer Cody my formal apologies. I would also like to offer Wolffe my formal apologies for having to deal with a bunch of dramatic people who are more than a little dumb sometimes. Rex has proven his place by rushing headfirst into danger without more than a second's hesitation. It's a right of passage. Especially if it's done more than once.


	8. Alone in a Hostile Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which conversations are had and discoveries are made

The last time Anakin had been around this many of Rex’s brothers, he’d been in a coma after having part of his soul ripped apart. The last time he’d been on anything this official looking, he’d been on his own trying to sneak some very sensitive files off of the ship, without being seen, before they made the jump to hyperspace. The combination of those memories really wasn’t doing his nerves any favors. Add to that Plo Koon being _around_ , assembling something to catch someone like Ben without letting anyone from the GAR figure out how it worked, and Rex jump starting the chip removal process with Wolffe, and neither of them were having a good time.

That was without Commander Wolffe going progressively more insane with every new atomic scan result. Every single chip they all found sent a wash of fury through the bond that set Anakin’s blood boiling in sympathy. Rex gathered the samples, stoic face covering the white hot anger that seeped into his Force presence in kelp-like tendrils of blood red and glacial blue. Wolffe’s anger was a different color, but no less potent, with the added bonus of being way more concentrated because these were _his_ men instead of the more abstract brotherly kinship they all lived by like the resol'nare.

The jump to Christophsis didn’t actually take that long, but Rex hadn’t exaggerated how efficient Wolffe was.

Anakin’d put together the charges, wires, armament, and charge packs he needed in record time. It’d made him feel useful for the first time in a month, but at the cost of him having nothing to distract himself from the fact that he was on a Republic cruiser. Willingly. With nobody but someone he hadn’t even known for half a year yet for backup. Not that he didn’t trust Rex for this, but the cold space at his side usually filled by one of his aliit felt even colder when someone he didn’t know well was trying to fill it.

The shadow of the lives these men were forced into felt like a physical thing. Telling the Republic apart from the Hutts and the Zygerrians these days was starting to be pretty hard from where Anakin was sitting. At least those arue'se were relatively honest about what they did to the beings they chained. It didn’t make it anywhere near evem remotely right, but it was truer than whatever the Senate was saying to justify this. The Star Destroyers were mobile slaughterhouses. The darkest parts of Anakin’s mind kept questioning how much control those chips had over these beings. Rex had rebelled, but Rex had the Force. It made sense that it would change how much power those things had. But what chance did someone who was Force Null have at trying to override the chip without even knowing it was there? Even knowing it was there?

Anakin slid through the basic katas he knew he could do without overworking anything that was still healing. The Force was around him, a display of ocean-like flows in an array of different colors. He could see it, even when he closed his eyes. But trying to touch it was like trying to hold onto an eel. It kept slipping through his grasp and sliding out of his mind. He couldn’t find his center, and he was vibrating out of his skin, the desire to just go through every kata and exercise he knew until he was tired enough to do a deep, still meditation like he knew he needed to damn near irresistible.

Being angry was something he understood. He may not have completely grown up in chains, but he’d started that way, and he still remembered being that way. Most of the people he talked to were the same. So being angry, seeking justice or vengeance? Well, there was a reason he’d painted his beskar’gam black and gold. That wasn’t it, though. The Force didn’t slip away like this when he was angry. Light was harder to reach, but the Dark was never to slick to hold onto when he was angry. If anything, it was like a dye that seeped under his skin and rooted there for _days_. No. This was something else. Not being able to sense or figure out what it was, was _infuriating_.

So he gave up and went back to cleaning and checking his armor and weapons for the one hundred thousandth and first time since they’d gotten on this floating graveyard.

Rex sat across from him at the workspace, lightsaber parts spread out. He was almost done putting it together. Picking the components always did take the longest, and Rex was smart enough to put it all together without Anakin’s help. With Anakin’s help he was going through it at hyper speed. It’d be done before the end of the week. Maybe even before they had to trap this assassin.

Ventress, apparently.

“Did you ever meet Fett?” The question surprised Anakin almost as much as it seemed to surprise Rex.

He stared at Anakin’s mask for half a second before a gentle prod came over the bond. Anakin tightened his shields reflexively before relaxing enough to give the same level of clarity facial expressions would. That Rex didn’t flinch at all said something. Anakin wasn’t quite sure what that something was, but it was something.

“I only met him once. I was in one of the older batches of brothers, but not the oldest. There are a few who Fett trained directly. But as soon as Boba started being able to wander around by himself, Fett left the training to a couple of Mando bounty hunters he recommended to the longnecks. He only ever came to see my squad, when we had to pass one our last physical exams.” Rex was scowling a little, but the flash of wrath at the mention of the Kaminoans made it all pretty clear.

“What about you?” Rex was back to working on his ‘saber.

“Not much. We’re Mando, but we’re not the kind that he considers real Mandalorians.” Anakin hadn’t really been much more than the getaway pilot when his Buir and ori’vod had been beating Fett over the head with a block of beskar to get him to get out of their way. Afterwards, he hadn’t had much of a desire to deal with someone who followed credits the way Fett did. Then Boba had shown up and none of them had known what to think of Jango Fett of all people becoming a clan of two.

“There were rumors that he had to fight Hibir as one of the tests to see if he was the right man to be the template.”

Rex’s offhand comment sent a spike of something sharp and ugly through Anakin’s chest.

“Really?” It was amazing how easy it was to sound like he wasn’t burning up inside.

Not that he had any illusions about his shielding being that secure given that he was letting Rex read him.

Rex didn’t react much other than to nod and watch him for a second like he was making sure Anakin wasn’t going to go do something stupid again. He was fine with risking his own neck. But he knew Buir had asked Rex to look after him the same way she’d asked him to look after Rex. The poor Captain didn’t deserve having to suffer her and Ben’s wrath if he got himself killed doing something stupid. So unfortunately, grinding his teeth down to stubs was just about the limit of what he could do with that information. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make plans.

///

The evidence was damning. Shmi still couldn’t quite believe how much they’d gotten from the dump. Kit had done a much more thorough job than they’d been expecting for a cursory initial search. She could spend hours pouring over everything, but what had caught her attention was the pattern of data dumping that followed every visit from one of Ziro’s people or from Ziro himself.

It was random, but reliable. If Shmi hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought it was one of theirs. She knew Hutts and how they worked far better than she’d ever wanted to though. The first thing someone learned about them was that unless it profited them in some way, it wasn’t going to be done. So Ziro had to think whatever he was up to would be worth risking his nephew’s wrath to do it. He already had a solid presence on Coruscant according to Poy’s people. Whatever it was, it was valuable enough to gather evidence that could destroy Jabba’s empire if it ever fell into the right hands.

If the communication logs were right, those records went as far back as Kit had managed to go. Months, maybe even years. All of that information had to be somewhere. Maybe they could scare it out of him? Ziro was an infamous hut’uun. He’d backstab almost anyone, but he’d never go against anyone directly out in the open. It was part of why he’d gone to Coruscant. That planet had a lot of easy pickings when it came to the Hutts’ usual fare. All he’d have to do is put recorders in a few strategic points and he could own half the planet if he wanted to. Politicians were never as careful as they thought they were.

The lead was solid enough to give someone who was smart good reason to investigate Ziro. It also pointed to most of the major supply lines. They hadn’t gone on a good raid lately. When Anakin and Rex got back, hitting one of the transports might be a good idea. Jabba was apparently due for a replacement delivery. The rate beings disappeared from the palace, it was shocking anybody walked out of there alive at all. Even the bounty hunters got killed from time to time.

The connection to Dooku could be enough to get the Republic to isolate too in the right place. That he was on Tatooine set Shmi’s blood on fire, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about it at the moment. They didn’t have the strength or the resources to go after him right that instant. But using that to target Jabba? That was doable.

“Do you want some tea?” Ben startled her out of her thoughts.

“That sounds wonderful.” Shmi got up to follow him, the shadows from the holodisplay in her eyes.

The kettle was already going, the smell of citrus shig filling the kitchenette from the little pot he had on the counter. Ben leaned against the counter, watching the water, eyes far away. Shmi distracted herself by going over the lists of things that needed replacing at some point or another. The Jedi had been thorough when they went through the ship. She was still trying to figure out what they’d done to the shop log. The credits or barters kept adding up and the amount of work it would take to get back on their feet was swimming behind her eyes.

The mugs of tea were a welcome distraction. She hadn’t had real Behot shig in too long and Ben always made the best tea out of the three of them. He was curled around his mug like it was precious, looking for something. His emotions were a confused snarl in the bond that made Shmi’s mind feel unpleasantly slow and fuzzy. She pulled more on the Light, hoping the clarity of it might clean up the Dark tangle that was settled in the room.

“What’re we doing?” Ben’s voice was shattered and she wondered how long it’d been since he’d been able to sleep.

“What we have to.” That was always the answer.

“But what does that even look like now? The Jedi? We can’t go back to what we were doing before. They know to look for us now. I know you don’t think they’re just going to let us slide if they can get us in their grasp again, and we just let-“

“When was the last time Anakin listened to either of us about something like that when we told him no?” Shmi raised an eyebrow at Ben. He did something that was dangerously close to rolling his eyes and she tried not to laugh.

“You know what I mean. And Rex would’ve probably listened. He didn’t have to, shouldn’t have had to walk into that.” He was bent over the mug again.

“And he knew that. That sort of thing isn't about shouldn’t, it’s never been about that. Not for us, and not for him either. We’ll deal with it like we deal with everything else. There are a lot of ways to disappear in a war zone, you know.” She took a sip of her own tea and savored the citrus.

“You’re too calm about this. What did you see?” Ben’s eyebrows were furrowed.

“Nothing. I have a feeling that it’ll work out, one way or another. I don’t sense any more danger than I’d expect from something like this.”

“It feels like the Vaynai run again.”

“That was a long time ago.” She shook off the chill from the memories, sipping her tea more for the warmth than the taste.

“It started out almost exactly the same way, though.” Ben was staring at her, eyes the only thing that showed the deep sense of unease that’d permeated the Force and infused the bond.

“The outset was different. We were all in separate places when that disaster started. We have more information about who we’re dealing with this time too. And none of us are alone right now. That’s already very different from Vaynai. You also said you had a bad feeling about what was coming before we even got the request to help out with that run.” She took another sip of her tea and tried to sink into the Force. She felt like this was something that needed to happen, but not why, outside of the obvious.

“Maybe, but the blowout from that came without any warning too.”

“There was plenty of warning, we just weren’t listening.” Several weeks of upset stomachs, night terrors, sleep paralysis, twisting guts, and stress and memory headaches had taken their toll. None of them had been paying anywhere near close enough attention to see the trouble coming.

Anakin being around a Jedi and an army of what amounted to slaves wasn’t doing anything for Shmi’s stomach or sleeping habits. But arguing with him about helping someone who might be in the same position Ben used to wasn’t something she was going to do. The two of them leaving also had the added benefit of getting them far, far out of Dooku’s grasp. Or, more importantly, getting Dooku out of Anakin’s line of sight.

“Maybe, but there’s something wrong here. You feel it too.” He glanced around like he was expecting there to be an intruder on the ship.

She glanced around too out of reflex. “It’s centralized around Tatooine, and that’s not a surprise. It’d be more of a concern if the Force was acting like there was nothing wrong. It’s Tatooine, and Dooku’s here.”

“I don’t like how far away they’re going to be. It’s not like the other times he’s gone off on his own. Nobody knew who he was then, and that a Jedi does, that anybody in the Order does. Even if they don't have your real names, they have enough to trace back to you if they find any of the Morut'e.”

“If they found one of them, we’d have more to worry about than them asking for our names.” She missed Anakin and Rex too. “We have a plan for that. Ret’lini, you know that better than anyone.”

“Hmm.”

He stared into his mug, the shig having gone cold a while ago. Shmi kept feeling through the Force. She didn’t even know what she was looking for, and it being so cloudy today of all days was more disturbing than she wanted to admit.

///

General Ti hadn’t said what they were doing. Fives had been following behind her, practicing reading the Force the way she told him to. She’d been leading them around the signatures of the longnecks and 99’s crew, guiding them both towards something. The further they went, the colder it felt. It was almost like the ice trying to crawl up Fives’ spine was alive. It was eyes tracking his every move, something stalking them both in the night-dimmed passages that made Fives twitch for a blaster he wasn’t even carrying.

They weren’t allowed down this way, Fives knew that much. Any time one of them tried to go here, they would disappear. Eventually, everybody stopped trying. That didn’t stop the rumors that flew around the place, though. Rumors about the same cold that was crawling its way up his spine now. Whispers about the haunted, torn up, bloody remains of whoever Hibir used to be stalking the halls, waiting to rip brothers who weren’t careful enough down to the bone. Some of the oldest brothers used to talk about being taken down here by the longnecks and not remembering anything about what happened to them. Just headaches, red eyes, and nosebleeds.

Fives tried to swallow down the lump that’d grown in his throat.

“Here we are.” The General’s voice was as peaceful and quiet as ever, and Fives clung to the sense of calm that still emanated from her.

He looked at the door before glancing at her.

“I brought you with me for this because I know that you and your brothers know more about what happened to Ben than we ever will. I’d hoped that you might be able to help me figure out what this might have been for.”

With that, General Ti opened the door, doing something to the lock with the Force that Fives didn’t quite catch before he was hit in the face with a blast of freezing cold air. It stank of rotting flesh and misery, and Fives knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was where it all happened. What “it” was didn’t matter in the face of the _agony_ that was radiating from the room. He felt tears sliding down his face and saw General Ti leaning against the wall, shoulders heaving.

“What the hells _are_ these?”

He went towards the wall of boxes. They were made of this dark crystal that looked like it was glowing inside. They felt like they were gravity wells or black holes in the Force, deep and dark and cold, clawing at Fives’ mind with razor sharp teeth and talons. He couldn’t look away from them. Until he saw the tiny cell on the wall furthest from the door. He felt General Ti following him back.

“I didn’t think we would ever find anything like this. It was a hint, something tiny Quinlan picked up in that session you observed. This. Well, it appears to be, according to Quinlan, where Ben might’ve been…maintained.”

She reached for the transparisteel, looking like she was in a trance, before shaking her head and folding her hand back into her sleeve.

If he hadn’t been able to feel how _wrong_ it all was, the room would’ve looked like any of the other observation rooms the longnecks used for subject testing. Except for the wall of boxes. He saw the data center on the other side of the room. How had they managed to get down here without the cameras picking them up anyway? Fives knew the blind spots as well as any other brother, but there weren’t any blind spots around here. That was part of the problem.

“What are those boxes?” He decided to start with the question least likely to get him some sort of cryptic answer for his trouble.

General Ti startled before she glided over to the wall. Her face screwed up as she looked over shelf after shelf of crystal boxes.

“Some of them are holocrons, but most of them are some kind of storage. They’re steeped in Dark Side energy. A lot of the oldest techniques were lost to us through time and the Sith have always had secrets we haven’t been able to find. Whatever those were, they’re still not safe to touch for any Force Sensitive. Stay away from them.” She wandered back over to the cell.

Fives watched her for a few seconds, feeling like he was intruding on something incredibly private.

“Did you know him? You know, before?” He trailed off on the last question. He couldn't believe he'd asked her that.

Her shoulders were curled and she kept reaching for the transparisteel. “Not well. I knew of him, I’d seen him around the Temple from time to time. I didn’t know him like Quinlan or any of the rest of his agemates. But a padawan disappearing the way he did. Well, it was unheard of at the time. Padawans had died before, but not like he did. Qui-Gon kept insisting he was still alive for the longest time, and that just turned him into somewhat of a legend. At a certain point, there was a rumor in the Temple that the Apprentice, Hibir, killed him. That he was the first victim even though the timing was off. But I suppose, in a way, that was right.” Her voice was the saddest he’d ever heard it and the air in room went from menacing to heavy and depressed.

“What did you and your brothers know about him? I know you said most of your training modules on the Force and the Jedi use recordings of him.” She went for the data station, pulling out some sort of datastick on the way.

Fives looked at the little cell, agony and misery radiating from it in the Force, and shivered.

“Not much about his training honestly. We know more about the physical training regimen than anything. We were put through the Force Null version. Nobody really remembered him that well. Even Alpha hadn’t been decanted before the Kaminoans lost him. But there were stories. Most of it was about how cold everything was around him. A lot of the rumors we all heard talk about how he always looked dead too. Not weak or sick or anything like that, but like there wasn’t anybody home in there. Like he was just an organic droid.” Fives couldn’t help the “like they want us to be” that crossed his mind as he stared at the cell.

He risked a look at General Ti’s face and a poke through the Force. She looked shattered, sitting slack in the chair as the terminal did whatever it was she’d been setting it to do. The Force felt even sadder than before, the pain in the room giving way to the utter despair and hopelessness that was still radiating from the corner. Fives pulled his shields tighter, not that he thought that would help. He’d never felt anything like this.

“Why can’t we feel this from the dorms? Or anywhere else?”

“I’m not sure. I would guess that this room is cut off from the rest of Tipoca somehow. There are ways to separate Force Sensitives from the Force, ways to shield certain things in the Force. So I suppose it’s technically possible to build a standing shield strong enough to contain this. If they intended for us to come here while Ben was still, still here, then they would need a way to conceal him from us.” General Ti pulled the datastick from the terminal and stood up again.

She led the way out, locking the door behind them. Fives felt her cast around in the Force, looking for any evidence they might’ve left behind. He wondered, in the privacy of his own shields if she brought him because she hadn’t wanted to face that alone. He didn’t think he’d ever want to go into something like that with nobody else with him. Then again, she was a Jedi. Who knew why they did anything aside from the will of the Force.

///

There were massive holes in Nova Battalion’s numbers. There were massive holes in Green Battalions’s numbers too. There were massive holes everywhere. Cody was still having trouble coming up with an excuse not to sick the tattered remnants of Torrent on Slick. The casualties from yesterday weren’t helping him with that campaign. He stared at the datapad, looking at all of the chasms shinies were going to be filling and tried to remember as many names as possible. He hadn’t gotten everybody’s name. He hoped all of these numbers had someone saying a name for them in their litany.

Stacks was staring at the same report. Nova was one of his battalions, and he’d been shattered by yesterday’s casualty reports too. They weren’t the worst the 212th, or even Nova, had suffered. But they were so avoidable that it felt even more like they’d been sent to the slaughter than usual. Stacks had been having trouble not strangling Slick himself, spending most of what little time wasn’t occupied with work with Cody to “keep myself from doing something he’s not worth” he’d said.

Cody looked at the door. They were waiting on Bins, who shouldn’t have even been planetside to begin with, and Coric. Bins’d said he had news about something to do with the chips. The fear in his voice would’ve been enough to put a stone in Cody’s stomach if one hadn't been there already. As it was, Cody’s entire abdomen felt like it was made out of more rocks than organs these days. Still, he’d been waiting to hear what Bins found since he’d landed.

Bins and Coric came in at the same time, Bins motioning to ask if they’d swept the room as he sat down. Cody nodded to him and put down the datapad. He wasn’t in a good place to deal with something like this, but this was the only time they had. Green Battalion was on standby for the next few hours. They should all be sleeping. Cody wasn’t sure he knew what sleep was anymore. For all that everything had been a shavitshow, he had mountains of paperwork demanding in depth descriptions of _why_ it had been a shavitshow. Bureaucracy at its finest.

“I’ve found some of the orders on the chips.” Bins didn’t waste any time; he looked sick. “The first few seem harmless enough. Just about the chain of command if the Chancellor is declared unfit for duty or killed. I only got a few of those. But the ones that had the most power devoted to them, the ones that had the most push behind them were the-the kill orders.” He swallowed, looking around the table.

Cody’s ears were ringing again. Bins wouldn’t look him or any of the others in the eye.

“Kill orders for who?” Cody already knew. He had to hear it, though. He had to know for sure what those orders would be.

“The Jedi, anybody declared an enemy of the state including any of the Senators, the Chancellor, there were a lot. I haven’t even gotten through most of them.” He was staring at his hands.

Cody could _feel_ the chip sitting in his head. This poisonous, cancerous _thing_ sitting inside his skull, eating away at his brain every second it was still there. He stared at the scar on Bins’ skull, trying to reign in the desire to dig into his own skull and pull the damned thing out himself. He took a deep breath. Then another one. Then another.

“We can’t take them out for now. We don’t have the resources. But as soon as we can, we have to start pulling them out. Start with me and Stacks, then work your way down through the chain of command. Verify everybody before you tell them anything. Do not let this slip to the Jedi. We don’t know if they knew about the chips. Even if they don’t know what’s on them, they still might know that they’re there. Don’t trust anyone without checking them first.” It almost killed Cody to say it. His face felt numb. His entire body felt numb with the shock. He still wanted to dig in his skull for the chip.

“Yes sir. I need to bring in another medic to start.” Coric was still as solid as he’d been when they’d come in. Maybe Bins told him what he’d found already.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Nova had a lot of good medics. All of Stacks’ regiment had good medics. It’d been a point of pride.

“There’s a newer medic. He is, was, still a little shiny, but he’s got talent. He’s also good at keeping his mouth shut when he needs to. All about protecting everyone’s health.”

“Got a name?”

“CT-6116, I think he goes by Kix.”

Cody motioned to Stacks, who was already searching on the datapad.

“Alright. Let me, Stacks, and Bins verify him before you bring him in. And I want my chip out before you bring in anyone else anyway.”

“Alright. The timing is going to be tricky, but that blow you took to the head will be a good cover. I can say there was some sort of hidden damage or something. We’ll see.”

“Don’t make it too serious. I don’t want to be out of commission any longer than I have to be. Someone has to run this.” Cody looked around the table.

Everyone was pale. Bins was still looking at his hands, shoulders hunched, one of those hands drifting up every so often to run a hand over the healing scar from the surgery like he was trying to reassure himself the chip was really gone. Stacks was stabbing his way through the datapad, looking at 6116’s profile. Coric looked like he’d eaten something bitter, face screwed up in a scowl that would’ve sent most of the shinier brothers running for the other side of the base. This was bigger, so much more of a threat than Cody thought.

It was one thing to have a bomb in their heads, something that would kill them if they didn’t follow orders. This was something else. Literally not being able to resist, to fight back if they were told to do something. What was the point? They were already loyal. Anybody who graduated had been vetted through all of the tests the longnecks and bounty hunters could throw at them. So why? He couldn’t think of a single reason why this was necessary. Except, that was a lie. He knew damn well why someone would do this. Some kind of failsafe. Or multiple kinds of failsafes from the sound of it.

Well that wasn’t happening.

Not at the cost of Cody’s brothers; not if he had anything to say about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Aliit-Family  
> Arue'se-Enemies  
> Beskar’gam-Armor, in this case Mandalorian armor  
> Buir-Parent  
> Ori'vod-Older Brother/Sibling  
> Hut’uun-Coward  
> Morut'e-Strongholds  
> Ret’lini-Just in Case
> 
> I can't even count how many times I rewrote sections of this chapter; this has been a really disjointed process. In other news, for how many orders were on the chips, there is so little information about what all of them were outside of the obvious. It does leave a lot of room for Palpatine being generally awful, though.


	9. No Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Padmé goes hunting and brothers are brothers

The Force was clouded by the dead. It looked like the smog on city planets: dark, hazy clouds that colored any light they passed in front of and promised acid rain. The dead didn’t stick around as far as Anakin knew. But how they died definitely did, and he knew that if he let his shields down even a little, he’d feel fire licking his skin and the vacuum of space ripping the air out of his lungs and freezing him to death. He pulled back into his core, the slight dimming of his senses nothing but a relief in the face of it all.

They’d been trying to get through the line since they’d dropped out of hyperspace, joining the Tranquility and the Negotiator. The rest of the Destroyers had been scattered in the battle, and the windows were full of turbo laser fire and debris from blown up fighters, shuttles, and transports. Rex’s nerves had flooded the bond when there’d been some sort of report about Nova and Green Battalions engaging something on the ground and had only gotten worse as the battle raged outside. The itch to get out and help burned worse by the second and Anakin really wasn’t sure whose it was at this point.

Apparently all the jetiise were on the ground and Master Koon was their best shot at breaking the latest attempt to blockade Christophsis. Again. How many times had the damned place been blockaded anyway? At a certain point, Anakin had to wonder if the whole thing was just a big distraction. It read a bit too much like a jehavey’ir to him. Like the point was to waste resources or distract people from looking somewhere else until it was too late. That was the best thing to do if the enemy had more at their disposal.

Then again, Anakin had never seen a large scale space battle like this. The Hutts had a fleet between them but never mobilized together, and the Zygerrians had never seen anybody as enough of a threat to strike against until it was too late. They might now, but that wasn’t Anakin’s business at the moment. So this was all new to him, and trying to read the strategy was a little like learning Aurebesh had been. Speaking Basic was easy, reading it was not. Just as he was trying to figure out if he could stow himself, Rex, and the equipment they’d need in one of the fighters, Commander Wolffe appeared fully decked in his armor, just like Rex and Anakin.

“General Koon has received word that you are to transfer to the Negotiator. They have a ship that should be able to transport you to the surface through this.” Despite having gotten the chip removed, he’d been back to business as soon as he’d come to.

“Okay.” Anakin really didn’t like that he wasn’t in control of where they were going, but that was what he’d signed up for with this gig, so he was just going to have to deal with it.

He kept as close to Rex in the bond as he could without slipping out of his shields and cloak too far, mostly as a safety thing. It was never a good idea to throw someone in his position into the deep end like this, even worse to do it twice and re-traumatize them the same way again. Better to have someone nearby who was morut’yc. Rex was draped in a Dark cloak almost as thick as the rest of Anakin’s aliit, his entire Force presence so shielded and melded into the rest of the colors that Anakin almost couldn’t see it unless he was looking right at him. It was really impressive. Then again, he was well aware of how efficient of teachers his aliit were were, and Rex had a lot of motivation.

It was still impressive.

The shuttle they were following the Commander onto wasn’t. It was bulky, and Anakin could tell just by looking that it was unwieldy and difficult to maneuver in. The Buurenaar Cabur would be easier to fly through the osik’la kyrbej outside, and it was designed more as a transport than a warship. What was wrong with the Republic? Outside of the obvious.

At least the pilot was good; they lifted off so smoothly Anakin’d barely felt it. He drew his shields even tighter as they made their way through the battle, offering part of his cloak to Rex when he felt a shudder of grief through the Force. They flew through the mass of turbo laser fire, debris, and explosions. Clouds of artery-red Force tinged in black coating everything in sight with the Light drawn in spider-silk thin lines of white and light blue through the whole field. He kept his eyes from drifting on the Force, focusing on the fighters instead.

The escort alongside them were some sort of Republic design Anakin hadn’t seen the specs for yet. Only one pilot in each of them and he really wanted to be out there in one of those. The Separatist (apparently) fighters were droids just like Geonosis, the buzzing, electric feeling of them scraping against his shields with an almost audible kind of _scratch_ that gave him goosebumps and wound his shoulders tight. That was interesting. And more than a little uncomfortable. He turned off the speaker on his helmet and turned on the comm channel.

“Do you feel the droids?”

Rex turned his head halfway towards him and cocked it before he answered. “Yeah. I didn’t notice that on Geonosis. What the hells is it?” His voice was tight.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been around any droid that felt like that. Someone did something to them. Maybe exposed them to something. The really deep places in the Dark can leave impressions on things.” Steeping a bunch of droids in a Dark Well seemed like a massive waste of time and effort to Anakin; but maybe they were a distraction like everything else.

They were inside before he came up with any other answer and both of them were harried off the shuttle before it turned around, picked right back up, and abandoned them on the Negotator. Rex was looking around and Anakin could feel the alienation and discomfort as vode rushed around the hanger. Almost loneliness. He stepped a little closer to Rex and let his shields slip a little bit. He wasn’t exactly a great stand in for the energy he could feel from the men around them, but if the space at Anakin’s side was cold, he didn’t even want to imagine how icy the space at Rex’s sides had to be.

One of the vode ran towards them in a set of matte black plastoid armor with stylized yellow and black jaig eyes above the eyes of the helmet. Rex snapped to attention and Anakin followed suit, trying to blend as much as was possible in a set of beskar’gam in the middle of a Republic cruiser. Full of clones. Who were all in uniform. Haar’chak bah haran, this was a horrible idea.

Too late now.

“Lieutenant Blackout, sirs. My unit and I have been ordered to take you planetside. Please follow me.” He was all business and started walking towards a corvette without looking back to see if they were following him.

Anakin looked over the ship as they went towards it. He hadn’t seen anything like it before, and it had an interesting design. The inside was interesting too and less claustrophobic than he’d expected from the outside. He kept behind Rex, watching the crew get set for their departure. He stood next to the tech with what looked like the systems readouts, knowing better than to try and push into the cockpit. The tech was chatting with another man in the same matte black armor, this time with what looked like nose art painted on different parts of his armor. The tech had what looked like some kind of water monster on his helmet and had some of the most relaxed energy Anakin had ever had the pleasure of seeing from someone Force Null. He looked around, feeling a thrill of shock at the Krayt Dragon skull painted on another tech’s helmet.

He hadn’t missed the hush at Rex’s appearance, and apparently, neither had Rex. He stood away from them, shoulders back, in parade rest. It was the tensest he’d been since the meeting with General (Master? Jedi titles were confusing) Koon. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular except for obviously _not_ looking at any of the flight crew.

The tech with the water monster on his helmet suddenly turned towards Rex and asked, “Is it really you under there, Captain?”

Rex stiffened even more before Anakin felt a slight snap over the bond.

“Yeah. It’s me,” Rex finally answered, looking at the tech from his spot near the door.

“See, Brandy? I told you.” The tech turned back towards the other vod.

“I’m still not giving you my good Corellian, vod’ika. I don’t like you that much.” Brandy laughed before turning towards Rex himself. “Nice to have you back aboard, vod. Cody’ll be glad to know you’re not dead.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Last we heard, yeah. Him and the rest of the trifecta.”

Rex’s entire Force presence sighed, golden-pink tinged relief floating in the same near invisible strings as everything else under the cloak. “I’m glad to hear that.” His voice was thick.

“We are too, believe me,” Brandy said, nodding.

“Hey, don’t you have poodoo to do?” Asked the tech with the Krayt skull on his helmet irritably.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Brandy’s voice was as haughty as the speaker allowed and the tech with the water monster and the comms tech both snickered as Brandy walked towards the engineering section.

“Aiwha,” the tech next to Anakin said, nodding to Rex.

Rex nodded back, coming a little closer now that the awkward tension had been broken.

“Sorry about Krayt, by the way,” the comms tech was looking over at the radar tech, shavit-eating voice clear as day. “He’s a little-“

“You finish that sentence, I kill you, Stardust.” Krayt stabbed at a button, irritation contradicted by the good-natured energy flowing in the Force.

The comms tech turned back towards his display, snickering, before hitting another switch.

“Command, this is the stealth ship requesting clearance for takeoff.”

///

Padmé wasn’t fond of the Hutts. That the Republic dealt with them at all turned her stomach after what she’d seen on Tatooine. That any of her fellow Senators felt that patronizing one of their businesses even being aware of their practices said more than she’d ever wanted to know about the ones she saw in Ziro’s club. That she’d dragged Dormé into this place with her was something she’d regret until the day she died. Still, the chance to get at least one of those beings out of a position of power was an opportunity she wasn’t going to pass up.

The comm from Ejasa had been an unexpected surprise, and Padmé had been delighted to hear from her even before the data she’d sent. It was all circumstantial, but the pattern was obvious, and Padmé was sure that it’d be a valuable asset even beyond Ziro. Especially if the Hutt had the storage of information that Ejasa suspected he did. The best way to confirm it was to go looking herself, so that was what Padmé did. Unfortunately, Dormé had caught on and hadn’t let her leave until she’d agreed to let her come. She hadn’t wanted to risk any of them on something like this.

She couldn’t deny that she was grateful to have Dormé at her side, though. As soon as they’d gone into the club, Padmé’s hair had stood on end, shivers of warning shooting up her spine and almost making her hand twitch for the blaster hidden in her boot before she could restrain herself.

Ziro’s club had a strict ‘no recording devices’ policy. Padmé didn’t believe in following people like Ziro’s rules, so she brought an astronomical number of button-holocams, recorders, and bugs as a token of protest. There was already enough evidence to get the place searched by the Coruscant Home Guard at least. Spice and death sticks everywhere. There were also very clear violations of the Sex Workers’ Protection and Rights Act. She didn’t miss the retainers at Ziro’s side either.

Unfortunately, none of that could be pinned directly on Ziro. She had to get him doing something, saying something undeniable. Or talking to Dooku like his nephew. If they were going to have this, frankly, idiotic law against speaking to Separatists, then she was going to use it.

She slowly made her way towards the elevated sort of lounge area Ziro was presiding over everything from. Dormé was intimidating enough for the both of them that nobody bothered them as they moved, but Padmé was still extremely uncomfortable. The whole place felt twisted and off kilter, almost like vertigo, but not quite. She pushed on anyway, determined to at least see how difficult nailing Ziro to a wall was going to be.

Just as they got close enough to hear, Ziro slid onto another part of the platform and disappeared. Padmé sighed and got close enough to Dormé for her to talk over the music.

“I’m going to see if I can find a way down into the VIP area. You stay here and see if you can find anything solid enough to hit him with.”

Dormé gave her a scowl that was all Sabé before nodding. Padmé smiled at her before checking to make sure she still had her blaster, holdout, and distress beacon.

The crowd thinned as she sped towards where she thought she remembered seeing lifts until finally there was nobody around but her and an IG droid. Padmé glanced around before straightening up, shoulders back, spine tall, and striding over to the lift it was guarding like she owned the place.

She asked to be taken to the lower level entrance and followed it in. It had a large blaster in one hand, and she was all too aware of the kind of damage any kind of assassin or battle droid could do. This would have to be quick.

She pulled of the the electro-disks the Abiik-Kemirs had given her handmaidens as thanks for her help out of her brace and stuck it right on the plating above the IG’s central processor.

The thing fried as she jumped through the bars on the cage around the lift and running down the hall to the private VIP room that was under Ziro’s lounge in the main bar.

She could already hear Ziro’s voice before she even crept behind one of the tables in the room. Dooku was on the holo in front of him and Padmé pressed record on the best button-holos and recorders she could reach, hoping at least one of them got a good enough angle. If she could get something like this to the Guard anonymously, even Ziro wouldn’t be able to get out of the charges they’d level for talking to the leader of the Separatists. That in addition to all the circumstantial evidence could get him put away permanently.

“Don’t worry. I’ve convinced Jabba that the Jedi intend to lead a strike on his palace,” Dooku said, his voice sending chills up Padmé spine.

“Jabba will kill them the second the set foot on Tatooine.”

“Which will leave you in control of all the Hutt clans, my friend.”

“Then this plot against my nephew has succeeded. What should I do about-“

Padmé looked behind her a second before another IG almost grabbed her. She rolled out of the way, smoothly rising into a crouch with her blaster in hand and taking down the droid in a single shot. She winced at the noise, and turned, firing on another droid.

She managed to take down one more before one pushed her over and kicked her blaster away grabbing her upper arms so tight the muscles rolled against the bone.

She refused to wince, instead, she made as direct of eye contact as she could with the holodisplay, and glared at it.

“Count Dooku. So, the traitor rears his head again,” she said, breathing a silent sigh of relief when the IG let go.

“I’m delighted to remake your acquaintance as well. Senator…Amidala, wasn’t it?”

Padmé stood. “I was just leaving.”

The droid stepped right back in her way.

“I’m afraid I can’t permit that now.” Dooku turned towards the Hutt again. “Ziro, this particular senator is extremely valuable. My Separatist allies will pay a high price for her head.”

Ziro’s face brightened with interest and he looked over Padmé in a way that made her skin crawl. “I like the sound of that. Take her to the dungeons!”

Padmé hit the distress beacon as two IGs grabbed her arms and hauled her bodily towards the dungeons. Hopefully, Dormé would be able to raise enough hell that she’d be able to get out of here without too much trouble. She didn’t want to risk any of the recordings getting damaged.

///

Rex was completely overwhelmed. He’d forgotten what being around so many of his brothers was like. He hadn’t thought he’d forgotten what the familiar energy of them around him was like, the safety (however unsafe the situation was) of them surrounding him. But his memories didn’t do the sensation of the real beings justice. He hadn’t realized how _lonely_ he’d been until he’d gotten on the shuttle and Aiwha (he didn’t even _know_ the vod before he’d left) had started talking to him like another brother. He wanted to _cry_.

He hadn’t felt the same on the Resolute with Wolffe’s men. They hadn’t been Rex’s, not like what turned into the 212th had been. On planet, surrounded by Waxer and Boil’s squad, waiting to get the location they were supposed to set the trap for Ventress up in was so unbelievably surreal. It made Rex _ache_ for Cody, Stacks, and Bins in a way he’d thought he’d already gotten past. The weight of the lightsaber hidden in a compartment in his armor was a stark reminder of why all of this happened in the first place.

He made an effort to keep close to Silas and keep the di’kut in his line of sight. He still remembered the explosion across the bond the last time he’d done something stupid, and Rex would be happy if that kind of planet shattering grief, anger, and exhaustion was never anywhere near the people that’d taken residence in his head again. Not that it was realistic, but damn if he wasn’t going to do everything in his power to try and make it realistic.

Rex’s armor didn’t stick out too much. It wasn’t even shiny anymore. But black beskar’gam with a bunch of bright red on it wasn’t exactly regulation, and Silas wasn’t making much of an effort to blend anymore anyway. The attention made Rex uneasy, and he could feel it being reflected back over the bond along with a healthy dose of curiosity right back for Rex’s brothers. It wasn’t necessarily unfamiliar for Rex to stand out. Even if the jetii didn’t see a difference without the Force, Rex and his brothers knew who each other and their commanding officers were and he was one of the ones with a visible 'defect'. But it was different for him to be the subject of major rumors like the ones he’d been overhearing. So he was still in a weird position despite blending in for everyone who wasn’t a vod or sitting in a corner of Rex’s skull.

But even with the awkward tension tying knots in his guts and the weird distance from how long he’d been gone, Rex was inexplicably, insanely, inanely _happy_. Happy wasn’t even the right word. It was more of a heavy hit upside the bucket of a sense of jatne manda.

Surrounded by his brothers was where he was meant, _made_ , to be.

Waxer and Boil kept closer to him than the rest of the platoon, and he wound up sitting with them, buckets off and just talking.

“But what is that even _like_ anyway?” Boil asked, staring at his half eaten ration bar like he was deciding if the rest of the calories were worth potentially breaking a tooth.

“I don’t know, it’s weird. I don’t really have words for it.” Rex could still feel the cold that had radiated from the being in his vision, the warmth of the lives of his vode around him, the currents of the Force on Christophsis moving in a completely different pattern than Naboo or Tatooine. How could he describe that? How could anyone describe it?

“Weird. That has to be the most vague answer about something like the Force that I’ve ever heard,” Waxer said in a deadpan.

“Well it is vague.” Waxer and Boil glanced at each other and Rex could already hear what they were about to say. “I’m serious. You can’t get anything specific out of it. You try and figure out what something means and then it means something else. Besides, I can’t see the future or anything like that anyway.”

He ignored the tiny jolt from the bond.

“So nothing cool then, okay. Good to know you’re the same as always.” Boil stowed the rest of the ration bar.

Rex shook his head, not able to keep the small smile off of his face.

“Don’t be so disrespectful, Boil! He might report you to our commanding officer.” Waxer put on a High Coruscanti accent, sticking his nose in the air as Boil cackled and Rex sighed.

“Oh yeah. My apologies, sir! Won’t happen again, sir!” Boil flipped them both off before going back over to the comm station.

“Shinies these days.” Waxer saluted him back as Rex laughed.

He felt another pair of eyes on them and looked over at the group that was sitting near the other corner of the room. One of them was staring at him without even trying to pretend he wasn’t. The others two in the group were either talking or acting like they were talking, but slowly petered out when they noticed Rex was looking at them. One of them smacked the brother who was staring, making a ‘what the kriff, vod’ expression before shaking his head at him.

Rex got up, following the feeling that had appeared in his gut, and walked over to them. He felt Waxer and Silas’ eyes on them as he sat next to them, sitting his bucket back down next to him.

“Hi.” It was as good a start as any.

The vod that’d hit the one that was (still) staring at him looked at the others then back at Rex. “Hi.”

“You got a name?” Rex picked up his helmet and started messing with it. He saw the trooper look at the other two in the group before looking at him again.

“Redeye, sir.” He glanced at the others again, back straightening.

“Rex.” They were new. Not that he’d known everyone, but he had known the ground troops in Nova Battalion. These three hadn’t been there.

“Sorry about him.” Redeye gave the (still) staring vod another sharp look.

“A little staring never hurt anyone, don’t worry about it.” Rex turned back towards the staring brother. “You have a question you wanted to ask?”

He looked at Rex, and the Force felt like it was holding still, currents freezing around them, waiting for something. Rex’s shoulders tightened.

“Could you make one of us a lightsaber?”

Rex felt the flood of shock and embarrassed irritation from Redeye and the other trooper. The staring vod’s face was completely unapologetic, and Rex was having trouble not laughing.

///

Padmé counted eight IGs bringing her up to wherever Ziro was. It seemed a bit excessive, but what did she know about holding someone captive? Ziro was sitting on the same stage thing as before and from how few people there were, the club was closed. She wondered how long it’d been. It had felt like it could’ve been a couple hours, but she hadn’t thought it’d been long enough for the place to be closed. Ziro didn’t seem like the type to close for something as minor as kidnapping though.

“This is a mistake, Ziro.” She may as well cut straight to the point. She wasn’t feeling particularly diplomatic at the moment.

“Whatever credits you might get me Senator, you’re too dangerous to be left alive. Kill-“

“Put the weapons down!” Dormé yelled, and Padmé got ready to move.

Before Ziro could say anything else, clones flooded the room, blasters firing. Padmé dove out of the way, drawing her holdout and taking out a droid before chasing after Ziro. She shouldn’t have bothered. The clones made short work of the rest of the IGs and surrounded him in seconds.

“Sorry for the delay, my lady. Someone stole the speeder,” Dormé said, standing at Padmé’s side with a blaster on Ziro and a murderous look in her eyes.

“It’s okay, Dormé. I’d say your timing was perfect.”

“Dooku forced me to work with him! He threatened to kill me if I didn’t! You have to believe me, I’d never betray my nephew!” Ziro begged Padmé; the look of contrition on his face was almost convincing.

“Oh, I do. Commander Fox.” Padmé stepped aside, letting the men do their work.

She walked over to the other side of the room and leaned against the wall, Dormé following her like a shadow.

“Are you alright, my lady?” Dormé leaned against the wall next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m fine. It’s just. Doesn’t this seem too easy?”

Dormé gave her an incredulous look and Padmé shook her head. “No, I’m not calling him trying to execute me simple, but it’s so obvious. He was talking to Dooku, but we don’t know what Dooku wanted from him, and I doubt Ziro does either. Now we don’t have any easy way to find out.” At least she had the footage. That should get some sort of mileage somewhere.

“If you’re this used to almost dying I don’t think we’ve done our jobs right,” Dormé said before standing up.

Padmé looked up just in time to see Commander Fox stop a respectful distance away from them.

“I’ve been ordered to take you in for your statement, Senator.”

Padmé nodded, rubbing her hands on her thighs and steeling her shoulders before following him out.

It all passed in a blur. Somehow, Palpatine heard about what happened, which meant that Padmé had to stay at the Guard Center while he questioned how this had been allowed to happen.

“I am so sorry that you were caught up in this my dear. I simply cannot believe that this sort of criminal activity went unnoticed so close to home. We shall have to do something about this. Are you certain that you’re alright?”

“I’m alright, Chancellor. I’m just glad that Ziro can’t hurt anyone else.” Never mind that the ease of it was still bothering her.

“Yes, indeed. From what Commander Fox and his men have found so far, who knows what he would’ve done with you?”

Padmé put on her most diplomatic smile. “Thank you, Chancellor. I’m grateful for the attention you’re giving this matter. Ziro’s crimes are a major symptom of how lax the enforcement of laws like the SWPRA is on Coruscant.”

He hadn’t done anything about that act since she'd become a senator, and Padmé _really_ didn’t have the patience for being coddled right now.

“Quite right, Senator. Tell me, Commander Fox, what else have you been able to discover?”

Padmé listened to the rest of the report with half an ear while running through everything for the hundredth time. It was obvious what Dooku had wanted with her. The problem was that whichever way everything with Ziro would up going, he won.

Ziro killed her?

Dooku won.

Ziro sold her to the separatists?

Dooku won.

Ziro kept her in his dungeon?

Dooku won.

It’d been set up. Ziro had been set up. So Dooku really didn’t care, which meant that Ziro’s arrest was functionally useless. But Dooku had bothered with it personally, which meant it had to be important somehow. His inclusion wasn’t useless or pointless. But the fact was that unless Ziro wound up in charge of the Hutt clans, which wasn’t at all a guarantee, he was only a minor crime lord. Dooku probably almost had more pull in his world that he did.

So Dooku must’ve been after something else.

Hadn’t Ejasa said that there was a series of data dumps from Jabba’s systems? The Hutts were (very loosely) allied with the Republic right now. But if someone high up in the Separatist government could put the right kind of pressure on them, say hard evidence of their criminal activity, they’d switch sides. Padmé may find the alliance with the Hutts about as tasteful as the fact that the Trade Federation was still represented in the Senate, but the fact was that their hyperlanes were instrumental in a lot of the efforts in the Outer Rim at the moment. They couldn’t afford to lose them.

Damn.

Padmé thanked Commander Fox as the conversation finally drew to a close. She went through the pleasantries and polite goodbyes with Palpatine before following Dormé out to the waiting speeder on autopilot.

As soon as she was in the speeder, she commed Master Gallia.

“Senator Amidala, it is good to see you're well.” Master Gallia’s face was a serious as ever, but Padmé could see the hints of concern. It was amazing how fast word about things like this traveled.

“Thank you, Master Jedi. I think I might have some important information regarding Dooku’s activities with Ziro the Hutt. Would it be possible to meet with you today?” Padmé started calculating what she could shift to tomorrow. She had to sort through the copies of the footage that she’d kept and comm Ejasa about what’d happened with Ziro. She also still needed to sleep, not to mention shower and get into some more presentable clothing.

“Absolutely, just name a time and a place, Senator.” Master Gallia was looking at something out of sight of the holo.

Padmé re-steeled herself for the long, long day she saw coming.

If Sabé and Dormé let her go to work after this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Jehavey’ir-Ambush, I’m also using this in the context of a trap because the actual word for trap also means catch and that’s not exactly what I was looking for  
> Morut’yc-Safe or secure, in this case both  
> Aliit-Family/Clan  
> Osik’la-Messed up, screwed up, this is considered impolite  
> Kyrbej-Battlefield  
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings  
> Haar’chak bah haran-Damn it to hell  
> Vod’ika-Younger Brother/Sibling  
> Di’kut-Idiot  
> Jatne Manda-A complex sense of being at one with your clan and your life
> 
> As a clarifying note, I going with both the canon and fanon meanings for colors on Beskar’gam that the list here: https://the-mandalorian-guild.fandom.com/wiki/Mandalorian_Armor_Meaning says when it comes to the colors on everyone’s armor. Padmé was due for an appearance. Other parties were also due for an appearance. Rex has a lot of feelings. Rex has a lot of feelings and nowhere to put them. Anything that looks familiar from Padmé's parts is from the Clone Wars movie.


	10. Stupidity is An Artform

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which stupid plans and decisions are made

Cody had a lot on his mind at the moment. He had positions to fill, an assault to plan for, and a conspiracy to turn his brothers into organic droids to dismantle. So an announcement that they were going to be assisting with a plan to catch some darjetii who’d beaten back _both_ of the generals on the ground with them was just another thing. Just another part of his day. He'd sent one of the squads from Ghost Company to keep an eye on the 'specialists' without really thinking about who those specialists could be. Rumors that one of them was a brother? Cody was well aware of how much of their armor wound up getting taken as a grim sort of trophy; sometimes while the body was still warm.

So that said, seeing his vod’ika standing right in front of him when the Generals sent him to coordinate with the specialists short-circuited his brain in a way that hadn’t happened since he’d left Kamino. He actually stopped in his tracks (mind screaming about needing to keep moving and being too busy for this) and stared, datapad clutched tight in his hands, eyes wide. The part of his brain that was still functioning noticed that Rex looked uncharacteristically nervous, but he didn’t care about that. Everything in him was screaming about how much _trouble_ his brother was in being here. Cody managed to close the distance enough to look him over for injuries.

He was _okay_.

“What are you _doing_ here vod?” Cody could see his own shock mirrored in Rex’s face.

“We’re trying to catch the darjetii.” He said it like it was normal.

Cody shook his head, the stress of it coming down on his head all at once like a weight. If those people were the ones trying to catch the darjetii, then the odds were that they were going to try and smuggle her out from under the jetiise’s noses. That meant he’d have to figure out a way to believably let them slip without getting his men or himself in trouble. Again. If they were successful; which, from what he’d heard, was an if. But Rex was _alive_. He’d known that, of course he’d known that. But with so many dead around him, thinking of his brother as being alive became this nebulous sort of thing that was true in theory but not in practice.

“It’s good to see you too.” Rex still looked like he couldn’t quite believe Cody was real.

“That’s weird.” Could he just read them all like the jetiise now? Is that what this was?

“I know. I’ve got a lot to tell you, but you need to talk to Wolffe.”

That snapped Cody back into business. “What about?”

“He knows about the chips. He’s already removed his and he’s working on clearing the 104th. It’s early, but he’s got a good system in place. He’s also got a lot of samples for Bins if he needs more.”

So that was how they’d gotten here.

“Okay. After all of this business, I’ll get everyone together. We need to brief Kix properly anyway.”

Rex nodded, then cocked his head, eyes glazing over in a way that Cody was shocked (again) to realize that he recognized. So that was what that was. It was incredibly weird to watch a vod, much less his vod’ika, use the same thing as the jetiise. And right in front of him too.

“Silas is coming with everything. He’s the one with the plan, so you’ll have to ask him about what we’re doing with the darjetii. He also said that he’s going to get you a way to stay in contact with me so you have a place to send anybody who might get reconditioned or scrapped without having to deal with a third party.”

He turned towards the corner and, right on schedule, another figure walked around with a massive backpack. Cody eyed Rex again. That was new. And useful.

The man, Silas, Cody assumed, stopped in front of them and heaved the backpack onto the floor. He twisted his right arm and Cody caught a wince from Rex. That was also new. And interesting.

“Hi. You’re Cody, right? Nice to meet you while I'm awake.” He nodded at Cody, before digging into one of the compartments on the backpack.

“You too.” Cody had let Rex handle coordinating with the Abiik-Kemirs. He’d had more than enough to do at the time without being the one to deal with them directly.

Rex hadn’t been exaggerating how weird the air was around them. He’d said that it was them using to Force to look at someone instead of their eyes, whatever that meant. The air around the Jedi felt weird sometimes, and Rex’s attention was sometimes a little sharper than most vode. But this was something else. For a split second, it felt a little bit like a rancor was looking at him. It was over so fast that Cody almost wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it or not, but Abiik-Kemir relaxed so apparently it did something.

“So I don’t know how much Rex’s told you, but we’ve got a problem. This darjetii isn’t actually a Sith, or at least I don’t think she was originally. But that’s not the issue. The real problem here is that she might be where Ben used to be. We can’t let that stand, but more than that, we can’t let the Order be the ones to catch her. You saw what they did to us when we didn’t fight back. What they would do to someone who does? That’s not something we can’t let happen.

“If everything goes right, she’ll walk in and trigger the motion sensitive traps. Failing that, I’ve got a bunch of remote triggers I can set off. Failing that, Rex has to push her into the corner where I’ve got a plasma cage set up. Ideally, Rex won’t have to approach her at all. If all else fails, I’ve got a blaster rifle with a good range and nice scope. That can’t be the front line, though. I know I’m always on the lookout for something like that when I’m working. If she was trained like Ben, then she’ll be the same. If none of the rest of it works, then maybe we’ll disorient her enough that that will.”

He spoke at a million clicks a second, handing Rex something that Cody didn’t quite catch and heaving the bag back onto his back. It might've seemed like overkill, but Cody still had the image of General Jinn cutting through what felt like an entire company of battle droids by himself stuck in his head and the rumors about this assassin on repeat in his ears. So this really might not work. That set his stomach turning at the thought of what could happen to Rex if the plan went to haran.

“That’s where this gets uncomfortable. I’ll need one of your snipers if you can get a volunteer. If Rex can’t get her into the cage, then I’m a better distraction than he is. She’ll still be pissed at me for Naboo, and we can use that to get her off of him and out where the sniper can do their job.”

Rex gave Abiik-Kemir a sharp look. “Isn’t the point of my being here to keep you from doing some jaro?”

“The point of you being here was that I wouldn’t have to fight her head on and risk re-injuring my arm before it’s healed. Running doesn’t exactly fit the bill. Besides, you’ve got too much important shavit to do to die for something like this.”

Cody was surprised by the underlying current of concern in Abiik-Kemir’s voice. He hadn’t expected any of them, except maybe Ben, to care enough to risk themselves like that in the name of keeping his vod alive. If the Jedi were any example, it was pretty clear to Cody that Force Users were anything but careful with their shinies. Granted, this didn’t exactly fit the bill of “careful”, but at least he’d considered Rex’s safety in all of this.

Now, who was left in Nova that could take a shot like the one on the datapad?

///

The problem with the plan was that they needed to wait to set it up. Because they needed to wait to set it up, they needed somewhere to stay. And the only place to stay that wouldn’t get them riddled with bolts from battle droid blasters was in the Republic encampment. There was a deep stain of death and resentment coating everything in watercolor like Dark colors that stuck on the some of the vode like tattoos.

The Jedi were jangling on Anakin’s nerves in an awkward way. He was keeping himself hidden, mostly out of habit than out of any actual need. There always seemed to be one of them nearby. With two masters and their padawans around, he was feeling more than a little cornered. How was it possible that he’d gone almost his whole life without interacting without interacting with a Jedi (as far as he knew) and had now spent so much of the last few months surrounded by them? He really hoped this wasn’t the start of a trend, but he wasn’t optimistic.

Being outnumbered was making it hard to feel safe enough to meditate. And he really, really needed to meditate. He could feel the distance from the Force like a huge piece of him was slipping away, tearing apart from the rest of him. The healing trance before they’d landed on Tatooine had made it better, but the failed meditation on the Resolute had made it so much worse. All the emotions from the past week were riding around in a massive, tangled up snarl that he hadn’t had the time to deal with aside from crying all over his ori’vod for hours.

Anakin still wasn’t over the timing of that.

Or the embarrassing lack (more than usual) of control.

Of course, as soon as he found a place that felt like it was isolated well enough and he felt safe enough to start at least try still meditation, one of the Jedi had to walk in. It was the master he hadn’t met before. Nobody had bothered to tell him anybody’s name. He didn’t really care what her name was if he was honest; and her standing behind him the way she was made him want to reach for the stun baton on his belt. He resisted. With difficulty.

“Why are you in here?” She asked like it wasn’t obvious what someone Force Sensitive would want with an empty, isolated room.

“Why are you in here?” He parroted, mostly for an excuse to turn around and watch her.

“This is a military installation. You should not have been allowed to roam unaccompanied.” He could feel her looking over him in the Force. The slide of it over his cloak and shields set off every alarm he had and his jaw clenched.

“I don’t think anyone could do much harm in a broom closet.” Or whatever this room was. He left out the air vents that he sensed connecting to far more important places when he looked.

“The fact remains, you should have someone escorting you.” She was still between him and the door; the room was too small for that.

“No one said anything.” He tightened his shields and reached into the Force, looking for something solid to root himself in.

“Well then that was our mistake. I’m going to have to ask you to either remain in your quarters or the common areas, or ask an escort to accompany you should you need to go elsewhere before your duties resume.” Her face was blank and she was opaque in the Force, the colors around her just the generic Light Jedi colors in the same tight sort of concentrate that most of the Masters seemed to have.

“I can do that. Sorry for the trouble.” He tried to keep the tension out of his voice and hoped the modulator would compensate for whatever slipped. He saw her pushing at the cloak around him. The feeling of it was getting worse by the second and the adrenaline was kicking in.

“It is no trouble, Mr. Abiik-Kemir. If you’d follow me.” There was irritation in her voice, and that set his nerves at ease a little bit. At least she wasn’t completely blank. There was something going on in there.

Anakin could work with irritation.

///

It was sunny. That was the stupidest thing to notice under the circumstances, but Rex couldn’t help but feel like it was a weird time of day to start prepping for a plan like this. Silas had made his displeasure with the timing known. He was also making a sport out of riling up General Unduli. The day before she’d forcibly escorted him into the mess where Rex had been sitting and eating with Cody and dumped him on Rex’s ori’vod without a word beyond what amounted to “keep an eye on him”. It seemed like the di’kut decided to see how much he could get away with before she’d try something.

Munit tome’tayl, skotah iisa.

Haar’chak.

The building they were setting up in reeked of death, the waves of it sucking Rex under every time he tried to reach for more. He hadn’t even realized how much of a habit he’d made of reaching for the Force in the last month alone. He rooted himself on the anchors of the bonds and on his ori’vod’s solid Force signature to his left.

“What’re you doing?”

Rex didn’t answer for a few long seconds until he realized that Cody’d been talking to him.

“What do you mean?”

“You keep getting this look on your face and looking for me and Abiik-Kemir. Is there something wrong?” Cody had a hand on his blaster already.

“It’s nothing. This place is just. Bloody.”

Cody winced, presence dimming. “Yeah. Pretty much everywhere we can reach has been contested at some point. We weren’t here for this one, but…” He trailed off, looking around Rex at whatever was going on behind him.

“What in the nine Corellian hells is that?” Cody’s voice completely flat and done.

Rex turned and saw the most obnoxiously complex system of wires and charge packs ever put together.

“This,” Silas said as he jumped down from his perch on one of the 'artfully' exposed beams in the ceiling, “is a plasma cage. It basically makes a miniature electrical storm around the space in the middle. The person tries to leave and they get fried. It won’t kill her, but it won’t let her out. Trust me, trying to focus on the Force when there’s that much of a disturbance around you is hard.”

Rex looked at the system, some uncomfortable feeling rising in his gut. He could feel Cody’s curiosity in the Force alongside a healthy dose of skepticism. He took it on himself to poke Silas for more information. This kind of trap seemed like a very bad idea, but it was crazy enough to work.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve used this. It runs on a remote trigger; so you get her into the middle of it, I activate it, and she’s stuck. She’d have to Force more than half of the packs offline to be able to get out of it, and that’s not easy to do. I’ve tried.” He said it so offhandedly, Rex almost missed the implication.

“You tested this thing on yourself?”

“Someone’s got to test it. I can’t just assume it works. That’s how people die, you know.” He still sounded like that was normal.

Even Cody didn’t seem to be able to come up with words for that. Rex was glad it wasn’t just him. What was wrong with Force Users?

More importantly; was it contagious?

“I didn’t electrocute myself. I have remotes for that.”

“Still.”

What the hells?

“It’s all fine. Everything’s set up, General.” Silas leaned over to look at the blown out doorway behind Rex and Cody.

General Unduli came around the corner, face still serene. She inspected the room. Rex was impressed by how invisible everything was. The flashbangs had been hidden with the rubble, the stunners covered with the duracrete dust that coated the entire room and tucked into the debris. The concussor (a last resort, according to Silas) had been set into the wall like some sort of weird paneling. The only obvious thing was the plasma cage. When the sun was down, that would be in the darkest corner of the room. Everything would be practically invisible.

“The trooper you requested will be here shortly for his briefing,” she said when she finished her inspection.

“Thank you. I’m sure Cody picked the best man for the job.”

“I’m sure he did.”

The tension between them radiated in the Force and Rex could feel the intense desire to squirm or fidget over the bond. Apparently some things were contagious, because he was having to consciously hold himself still too. Either that, or he was a lot more lax after a few months out of the GAR than he thought.

“I have to return to the base, but I leave you in the Commander’s capable hands. May the Force be with you.” She turned around and it was amazing how much tension came out of Silas’ shoulders when her signature went down the hallway.

Rex started blocking out the room again. He’d already memorized where everything was, but he wanted to make sure he could navigate no matter what the assassin threw at him. He reached into the Force again, pushing through the echoing waves of death and pain that coated it like the dust that’d settled over everything. He smoothed over his mind as much as he could given what was happening around him. He made sure to keep the cloak around him, weaving it through his shields like he’d felt the Abiik-Kemirs doing. He felt the General, still in the building, Cody right next to him, following as he walked the room. Silas was still cloaked nearby, his cloak pushing Rex’s “eyes” to slide over him and ignore that he was there, convince him he hadn’t noticed anything. The electricity in the plasma cage was present. He was proud of himself for noticing it, for being able to pick out where each of the charges was.

But if he could sense that, wouldn’t the darjetii?

He pushed the question to Silas and got an impression of surprised amusement and almost pride before he answered.

“That’s what’ll draw her into the right room. She’ll know there’s a trap, but she’ll be expecting something like a containment field, not the other stuff. There isn’t anything on the market like this either, so she shouldn’t have any idea what it is.” The answer came over the private comms in the buckets. Rex wondered how long it would be before he could talk over the bonds properly the way the rest of them did. It seemed way more convenient and efficient than trying to use helmet comms all the time.

“Are you all done?” Cody asked, head cocked at Rex.

“Yeah. Is the sniper here?” Silas took the lead.

“Just arrived.”

///

Cody sat in the sniper’s nest next to Hail and watching through his macros. He couldn’t see that much through the damned things, but the need to watch his brother’s back wouldn’t let him put them down. He couldn’t see anything or anyone anywhere and it was setting off all kinds of red flags and warnings. The details about how they were going to make sure the darjetii took the bait had been more than a little fuzzy, and Cody was all too aware of the fact that there was probably going to be a battle starting the moment she showed.

She never made an appearance without some kind of attack from the Seppies.

Finally, he caught movement. A shadow ghosted towards the entrance to the building. He didn’t dare say anything, but he felt Hail adjusting next to him to follow her inside. As soon as she was out of sight, Cody’s back went tight, the nerves kicking all the way up. Something was going to go wrong. Nothing like this ever went right. Not in this galaxy.

He looked at the floor where the trap was set with his macros. He couldn’t see Rex, not that he’d expected to be able to. It’d be a little while before she reached him anyway.

It felt too soon when he saw the magnesium-bright flare of the flashbang going off. He looked through his macros again, seeing the bright arcs of those stunner things Abiik-Kemir had put out being repelled off of a bright red lightsaber. He saw the dust swirl, the duracrete wall blasting apart even more when the concussor got set off. Cody saw the lightsaber dart out of range a split second before the explosion, and he saw her land gracefully in the red light from the blade.

His heart was in his mouth, eyes locked on where he couldn’t do anything but watch.

///

Rex knew the second she stepped in that the plan was going to fall apart. As soon as the concussor went off, he went in, hoping to catch her as off guard as he could. This wasn’t going to go well. He felt that in his bones.

The first bolt almost managed to hit her, reflected just before it got to her. The crystals in her lightsabers (there were two, and he was waiting for her to pull the other one) felt like something raw and broken in the Force, vibrating against the fractured pieces of themselves in a dissonant tone that hurt his soul to listen to. He fired again, darting to the side. Another clean reflection and she was moving in on him.

He had to get her to the cage. That was the only thing in his head.

“So they’re sending canon fodder after me now. How low has the Order fallen?” She taunted.

Rex wasn’t listening.

He dug into the Force the way Ejasa had showed him on Tatooine, the world sharpening around him, every sound enhanced.

He shot forward, still firing.

Every bolt was reflected and he drew on the Force hard, sensing where the bolts would land before she was even done reflecting them. He pulled one of the shockers Silas had given him.

As soon as he’d closed the distance, he went low, feinting for the arm holding the saber before sticking the shocker on her exposed arm and rolling out of the way.

The shocker went off and she let out a cut off shout before ripping it off and pulling her other lightsaber.

The cage was still across the room.

He had her attention. She’d follow. He could sense her feeling him out and knew that she _knew_. There wasn’t any hiding what he had from her. She felt like some giant tortured creature that was screaming its pain into the Force.

He pushed past it, ducking under a swing that was so fast the blade was a blur and darting out of the other one’s range. He heard the hiss of the blade going through the duracrete, felt the heat of it through his armor.

He drew his blaster again as he pulled the Force around him again. The Dark was deep and bottomless around her, seething with pain and rage and misery. The Light was so distant Rex wasn’t sure there was any of it left in the face of this. Still, he used it to power a jump over the section of wall that was behind him, firing off as many shots as he could to force her back into blocking.

He bolted before he even felt the warning.

There were two scarlet lightsabers sticking into the floor where he’d just been.

He fired again and managed to graze her before she could get out of the way.

They were two thirds of the way there.

One more pile of debris and they’d be on top of the cage.

He felt a surge of electricity and a barrage of stunner bolts came from behind his shoulder. It was a clean miss, but it got her closer to the cage.

Rex backed towards the cage, blaster still in hand.

“Not going to duel me properly? Did they not teach you? Just replaceable organic droids, even if you can use the Force.” Her voice was rougher than it was before and he could feel her bleeding her pain into the Force, drawing this boiling acidic rage that burned Rex’s nerves just being around it into herself.

He gritted his teeth and kept pushing. He had to do this.

He pulled his lightsaber and kept it just out of sight. Let her think he just had the crystal.

He fired on her as fast as he could from the cover behind the tiny pile of debris, the world too sharp, too bright, the hum of those screaming crystals just on the edge of too loud. His nerves were on fire and he felt something over the bonds that he didn’t have the time to pay attention to.

He _pulled_ as hard as he could and brought his lightsaber up, activating it in a clumsy imitation of the block Ben had showed him with the training blades. He could already feel his wrist screaming, but it didn’t matter.

They were in the corner.

He dove to the side, _pushing_ , and putting all the momentum into a roll that got him out of range.

The plasma cage activated, and the sensation of the energy pulsing through the room and the light and the sound of it all almost did him in.

He didn’t know why he still had his lightsaber active.

He was embarrassingly tired and shocky for how short the fight had been. But she was trapped. It was over. It didn’t feel like it was over. But she was right there behind that electrical storm that howled in every sense of the word.

He didn’t know what'd happened to her lightsabers, but he couldn’t see them.

Wait.

///

Anakin felt the warning seconds before the floor started to give way. He’d picked the part of the room that was the most structurally stable. He knew for a fact that the frequency of the current he’d used would disrupt a ‘saber that didn’t have the right kind of guard on it. Blocking Force lightning was a very different experience, both technically and spiritually, than blocking any other kind of electricity. She’d figured that part out. So she was pulling apart the entire room instead.

He could feel her ripping herself apart on the edges of the Force around her, the cost of pulling so hard with all of that distraction cutting into her.

He managed to turn the fall into a jump and landed right next to Rex who almost hadn’t managed to move in time.

Rex felt awful in the Force too, in full overdraw. His ‘saber was still lit, forgotten in his hand.

It was up to Anakin and Hail.

Anakin let go of his cloak and let her feel him. He felt the second she recognized his signature. She latched onto him instantly, teeth sinking into his shields. He saw the raging inferno of her signature flare bright scarlet at him and he dove for what used to be the window.

The air rushed in his ears, and he gathered the Force, a cloud of gold and caf brown cushioning his fall. He landed, knees bending, and started running. She was after him, he could feel it.

He heard her ‘sabers reactivate in the Force.

Every curse he knew cycled through his mind as he ran, reaching for a ‘saber that wouldn’t be there.

The sniper took a shot, but she sensed it before it could connect.

He still had her attention, her signature locked onto him like a nexu. But Cody and Hail were easy prey.

No.

Anakin _pushed_ her as hard as he could and she went flying.

It was too much to hope that it would be that simple. She turned it into a graceful arch and rolled to her feet, just a little bit winded.

Anakin pulled a pair of stunners from his gauntlets and let one fly, charging towards her as fast as he could. She dodged, and he felt her gathering the Force around her, pulling it in like a gravity well. He jumped, trusting the Force to make him fly through it, taking another shot with his other stunner.

Everything she’d gathered went to pushing it away and jumping from where he was going to land. She’d learned from last time apparently. Too bad.

He had to get her ‘sabers. He had to make an opening for Hail. He felt around, picked up every small piece of debris he could find, and _pushed_ it at her as hard as he could, darting in while she was still distracted. He pulled his stun baton and jacked it up to the highest level.

He almost caught her on the shoulder.

She paid him back with another swipe from her right ‘saber. He just managed to angle his arm so the beskar took it. A piece of his soul died at the damage, but better the gauntlet than his hand.

The same thing happened to his helmet from a swipe with her left ‘saber.

He stabbed at her with the stun baton and got it cut in half for his trouble.

That put her just in range, though. He moved as fast as he could and finally got the connection he needed.

The charge went off and the one was enough to get her to drop her ‘sabers. He’d fried his gauntlet, but that was fine.

He darted out of the way, trying to lead her out into the open for Hail to take another shot.

Anakin _pulled_ her ‘sabers to him and tucked them into his belt. He saw the speeders heading towards them and felt the electric presence of droids.

Haar’chak they didn’t have a lot of time.

She was still following him.

He got out into the open and felt her pulling the Force to attack him or try to summon her ‘sabers back, he couldn’t tell which. Then she turned towards the speeder.

Shavit.

_Shavit_!

“Hail, target the speeders, now!” He knew it was too late.

Hail hit the first of the speeders, but the second was heading for Rex. Rex who’d managed to compartmentalize enough move and get to the street but not to shield.

Anakin jumped for the other speeder, stolen ‘saber ignited, feeling the assassin get away as he ripped into the droids piloting it. He _pushed_ her speeder as hard as he could, but it wasn’t enough. She slipped through his hands.

He leapt off the speeder and just managed to catch himself before he hit the ground.

The Force was writhing, seething with everything the assassin had dumped into it. The colors twisted into a mass that he couldn’t make sense of. He realized that he’d pushed himself into overdraw too. Months of inactivity and having to compensate for the weakness on his right had taken their toll.

He was on his knees, completely exposed, leaning against Rex and hyperventilating.

Cody was running for them, but he didn’t know what the Commander could do.

He felt like he’d missed something. Not just her getting away, but like he’d missed something really, really important. Something life threatening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Darjetii-Sith  
> Vod’ika-Younger Brother/Sibling  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Haran-Hell  
> Jaro-Insane act of reckless stupidity/death wish  
> Ori’vod-Older Brother/Sibling  
> Di’kut-Idiot  
> Munit tome’tayl skotah iisa-Long memory, short fuse  
> Haar’chak-Damn it
> 
> I’m sorry, Rex. As always, you deserve better. Cody too. Everybody deserves better, really. For anybody who’s interested, I have a head canon that all Sith lightsaber crystals sound like tritones in the Force. So both of Ventress’ lightsabers have different tritones coming from them, and they’re dissonant with each other as well. I’m not sure which notes exactly because I figure that it’s not even necessarily quantifiable the same way that you can measure a note (also because I'm willing to do a lot, but plunking that out isn't on the list). But that’s what it sounds like. Also, I just find the idea of all Sith lightsabers having that interval hilarious.


	11. I See You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rex has a time and the vode protect their own

The only good thing Cody could say about the complete disaster that was the attempt to capture Asajj Ventress was that it ended the dispute over Christophsis. She disappeared, and the Seppies disappeared with her. Of course it didn’t happen all at once, but that it happened at all was a stars-damned miracle that he was too overwhelmed to question at the moment. Except that that was a complete lie and he was so suspicious over why in the nine Corellian hells it’d been that kriffing simple that he hadn’t been able to sleep properly since they’d gotten back. Rex being twitchier than a womprat in a gundark nest wasn’t helping. Abiik-Kemir following Cody’s vod’ika around like a lost kitten wasn't helping either.

What was the true test of Cody’s patience was Slick’s insistence that he was in the right and that they were all traitors to their own kind and that he should be allowed to talk to Rex. How the aruetyc shabuir had even heard Rex was on Christophsis was something Cody was going to wind up taking out of some brother’s hide at some point. But if Slick said one more thing about how he had the right to do whatever it was he wanted now, Cody was going to leave him outside for the clankers.

How Rex had found out about Slick was something Cody was going to chalk up to the Force for his own mental health. As soon as he’d been on his feet, the idiot had tried to go talk to him. It was only a combination of Stacks being a snitch to Coric, Abiik-Kemir pulling some sort of weird Force shavit, and Bins distracting him that had kept him from doing something that would’ve killed Cody. Of course, Cody hadn’t heard about that until he was out of the approximately one hundredth meeting about how badly this whole campaign had gone in two days.

But there it was.

Now he was on watch duty under the guise of reading and signing reports. Which really meant a couple of hours catching up with Rex and making sure he didn’t try and do something stupid like sneak into Slick’s cell.

“It didn’t even have anything to do with you, vod’ika.”

“It doesn’t sound like it didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Odds are he would’ve done this anyway. He was using you as an excuse, and a bad one.”

“Cody-“

“No.”

Rex gave Cody a flat look and Cody gave him one right back.

“Just-“

“No. Now unless you want to bring Coric down on all of our heads, just lay there and pretend you have common sense.”

That got a laugh out of Rex, and that was a good sound to hear.

///

Qui-Gon was beginning to realize how much he’d truly underestimated Cody’s ability to get in the way of things he didn’t want done while making it appear as though he were doing no such thing. The medic caring for Rex and Silas had sent Qui-Gon on a several man long command chain loop that had ended with Commander Cody saying that they’d have to ask that same medic about anything to do with their care. When Qui-Gon had informed him about the loop, the Commander had done a very good impression of someone being clueless and frustrated before telling them that he’d get to the bottom of it. That had been two hours ago and the Commander was now wrapped up in a meeting with Commander Gree about rations or something of the like.

It would’ve been quite impressive had Qui-Gon not had urgent business to discuss with the two of them.

As it was, he’d been re-routed to Captain Stacks who was guarding Rex’s room like a sentinel. The Captain was perfectly civil and did an admirable job of forcing Qui-Gon into a number of discussions about things that were legitimately important, but also took far longer to go through than he had time for at the moment. He could sense the driving sort of purpose from the man in the room and knew deep down that this was most likely the only chance he had to get to the former trooper before he was able to evade Qui-Gon and the rest of the Jedi by himself. He could also sense that barely there, overly natural bearing in the Force that meant someone was hiding in there. A great mystery who that could be.

“We shall have to coordinate with Plo Koon and the 104th for the extraction process. As it stands, we will need to stop at either Kuat or Corellia for repairs before our next deployment. Kamino as well.”

Qui-Gon had spent a lot of time meditating, trying to fill the hollow in his chest and the fire in his soul from the losses they had suffered. It hadn’t helped much, and he knew that Ahsoka had been suffering from it all as well. Her ability to be stable in a situation like this wasn’t ever something that should’ve been tested this early. She was holding up well under the circumstances, but Qui-Gon’s entire being was wracked with guilt every time he saw the wounds on her soul and how deeply they were going to scar. This was no place for a padawan. This was no place for any of them.

“Yes sir. I believe you’ve already been given my recommendations for-“

“He said to let him in.” A clone Qui-Gon didn’t recognize stuck his head out the door.

The Captain turned towards him, an incredulous look on his face, clearly demanding an answer.

The man shrugged. “He said he was fine.”

There was more to that statement, Qui-Gon could feel it. Apparently, so could Captain Stacks, because he sighed and stepped aside, gesturing for him to follow the trooper inside.

Qui-Gon was struck again by the shock that he had missed this presence when they’d gone to Kamino. That he and Quinlan had somehow managed to miss the Force around Rex. He was so clearly rooted in it, so clearly part of the Living Force. Qui-Gon was aware that he was sensing his presence mostly without shields as well. Overdraw made shielding difficult, especially for padawan level learners. But Rex had the same presence, the same gravitas in the Force as any Sensitive.

How relaxed he looked physically was so completely at odds with the guarded energy he exuded in the Force that it made Qui-Gon feel faintly off balance. His eyes were the only things that echoed that suspicion, tracking Qui-Gon the second he entered the room and not leaving him even when he acknowledged some motion the Captain made behind Qui-Gon’s back. It’d been a decently long while since he’d had the full weight of someone’s unshielded attention on him in the Force like this. He wondered if it was the overdraw, the lack of experience, or a cultural reason the Abiik-Kemirs were teaching him that made Rex look at things and people with the weight of his core behind his eyes.

He noticed the shadow of Silas in a corner of the room, the overly natural flow of the Force concealing his entire presence. Qui-Gon gathered himself. Ghosts were interesting, more so when they were still alive. That was not, however, what he had gone through the loop to talk to either of them about.

“General Jinn.” Rex’s voice was carefully respectful and gave away none of the suspicion that coated the room like evergreen sap.

Qui-Gon felt the small shuffle as the trooper that’d been in the room before left and the Captain took his place next to Silas.

“Rex, how are you feeling?”

“Better. I wasn’t hurt that badly.” He shifted, cracking something before he settled back against the wall again.

“That’s good to hear; Ventress is very well trained.” It was likely that only the Force and luck had allowed Rex to get out as relatively unscathed as he had.

He was still watching Qui-Gon. The entire room felt a little bit like everyone was holding their breath, like the seconds before something went exactly right or as wrong as possible. Qui-Gon decided to just push ahead. The questions he had to ask were too important to tread so lightly they wound up not getting answered.

“I wanted to ask you if you knew of anything, of any program, any function, any part of the process that turned Ben into the Apprentice, into Hibir. Specifically, anything you may have noticed in yourself independently that is similar to Hibir, if not Ben.”

Qui-Gon had seen the results of Hibir’s work for himself. That he saw the men of the 212th executing processes and techniques that produced similar results made him more than a little uncomfortable given what had been done to the Jedi who’d been killed. Rex was the only one who wasn’t within the strictures of the GAR. He was also the only one who had to, by the nature of his existence, be introspective and attentive to his own emotions and motivations, whether he wanted to be or not. He would be the only one of the clones who could pinpoint any similarities that might exist between himself and the rest of the clones and Hibir.

The temperature in the room dropped noticeably and Qui-Gon was more than a little discomforted to realize that he couldn’t tell if it was Silas or Rex generating the cold.

“Not that I’ve noticed, sir. Our mental conditioning was very different. As far as any of us know, we weren’t made like Ben was. We were designed to be an army, not jetii hunters.” His tone was easy, but his face was as guarded and hard as Ejasa’s voice had been when she’d been standing in front of the Council. Qui-Gon heard Silas shift towards them, well aware that the noise had been deliberate.

“Was Ventress’ technique similar to what you know of Hibir’s technique at all?” He was aware that not being able to use Ben’s name for Hibir said something. Possibly something about denial or something else along that line of thinking.

“Silas would know more about that than I would, sir.” That was accompanied by a pronounced withdrawal on Rex’s part. Qui-Gon hadn’t realized how much weight the former captain’s scrutiny had had until he’d eased off, passing the questions and attention to someone else.

Compared to the visceral weight and cutting edge of suspicion that’d been on Qui-Gon before, the utter absence of _being_ was even more disturbing. He almost wondered if they’d done that deliberately, taken advantage of how stretched Rex’s shields were and how tightly Silas kept drawn into himself.

“All I can tell you is that she was better than she was on Naboo. So whatever’s going on with her, they’re invested in making her into a weapon or asset of some sort.”

Neither or them were talking about the Force and the clear distress both of them had been in when Cody and Hail had brought them back.

“And the Force?”

“She was using her emotions as weapons as much as she was using them for power.”

“And that’s something Ben knows how to do?” This was like pulling teeth.

Stacks migrated to Rex’s side, datapad in hand.

“It was a technique that he taught us about. It makes you lose too much focus to be any good for us with how we do things. But if you’re trying to destroy someone, flooding their best defense and offense with interference at the same time is a pretty good way to put them down.” This was said matter of factly, and Qui-Gon was forcibly reminded by the new drop in temperature that the young man in front of him had fought his old mentor, had fought Dooku alone and survived. Had fought Hibir while in some of the worst kind of shock a Force Sensitive was vulnerable to and had won.

Qui-Gon pushed off the whisper in the back of his head to back away. It was foolish. He’d been aware that this line of questioning wasn’t going to endear him to either of them. But he needed answers, and the Council wasn’t going to get them. Shaak had to keep what she found off the comms as much as possible and Plo had enough to think about without Qui-Gon getting him involved in whatever this was. He had no way to contact any of the Abiik-Kemirs himself. He would do what needed to be done to get to the bottom of what was going on with the clones and the Order if it killed him; and he didn’t think that either of them would do that.

At least, not here.

“Right. Is there any counter to that technique that you know of?”

“You keep track of your own self and keep going.”

Rex huffed when Silas answered and shook his head. “That’s like asking if there’s a way to counter being hit with a durasteel pipe. The only way to fix it is to just not get hit in the first place.”

Stacks turned towards Rex sharply, eyes wide and tattoo contorting as his brows lifted. Rex shrugged at him making an expression that Qui-Gon couldn’t quite read. Whatever it was, it made Stacks sigh and cross his arms before he leaned further back against the bed Rex was supposed to be laid out in.

“The thing about using your emotions like that is that for it to be effective, it has to be almost all consuming. You can’t feel anything else. You can’t pull for anything else. Someone just using their emotions to contact the Force and work with it won’t feel like that. That’s why it doesn’t work unless you work like that all the time anyway. And learning to do that isn’t usually good for your health.” Silas trailed off.

“So it’s unlikely that someone like Dooku would use it.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but he seems like he likes to be in control. And that isn’t being in control. So. No.” There was no lack of bitterness in Silas’ voice, an underlying rage that dropped the temperature again. It’d just been getting warmer as well.

“Alright. Thank you for your time.”

Qui-Gon had more questions about Rex than he did before. His existence proved once more, at least to Qui-Gon, that there was no separation between the clones and and any other group of beings. That the Force saw no difference between them and other sentient beings either. But where was that potential going? And what kind of life was he going to lead? Qui-Gon hadn’t had the chance to see what kind of potential Rex had in all the chaos both post-Geonosis and post-ruling. Having been shown how dangerous any one of the Abiik-Kemirs was planted a deep concern about what they were going to teach Rex. About how he would handle the Darkness that gathered in and around them.

He did, however, have a lead to give Shaak out of this. The older clones knew enough about the conditioning process that they might be able to point her at some answers. Maybe Alpha or one of the ARCs.

///

Rex felt like a raw nerve, exposed, head aching. He wasn’t a hut’uun. Silas said that it was normal to be anxious after overdrawing as badly as Rex had when he’d asked. That didn’t make him feel any less ashamed of the way that his head rushed and his lungs refused to breath. About the desire to curl up in the safest corner of the room with his DCs points at the door. Every time he tried to sleep, his brain would go faster and faster, the Force overwhelming his thoughts in a painful rush that felt like trying to run after treading water with weights on all day.

There actually was something to be worried about too. He could be a fluke, a random exception to the rule that clones weren’t Force Sensitive. But he knew that he wasn’t like he knew water was wet. So what was Ventress going to do with that? They had no idea who she worked for outside of the Seppies, and who knew where they’d gotten to her. Dooku couldn’t have trained her. She didn’t work like a Jedi, and Ben and Silas had been more than willing to highlight every single flaw they’d found in his technique.

He needed to do something. He couldn’t just sit around waiting to leave. So he took a page from Silas’ book and climbed into the air vents. They were surprisingly roomy and it was disturbing how easy it was to sneak past everyone until he got to where he sensed was the place he’d wanted to go. Using the Force felt like using a pulled muscle and made his heart race again; but he had gotten too used to having that extra sense and didn’t want to pull away, even though it hurt. He was more than a little concerned about that, but not surprised.

He dropped in front of the cell they’d made and took a second to take in the sensation of the Force shielding the sound of his footsteps.

Slick was asleep against the wall. Cody had been clear about how much bantha osik he thought Slick’s reasoning was and how it was just about the furthest thing from Rex’s fault possible. Rex didn’t necessarily think it was his fault. It didn’t have nothing to do with him the way Cody thought either, though. Whatever reasons Slick had for what he’d done, Rex had been one of them. He wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew this was a stupid thing to do. He knew that he didn’t owe Slick a ka’ra damned thing.

But he needed to understand.

Slick woke up as soon as Rex stepped in front of the shield. His eyes flared and he tensed for a few seconds before he recognized Rex. He got to his feet in a fraction of a second, crossing the makeshift cell to the barrier as fast as he could. Rex looked at him, trying to see something that he knew wouldn’t be there. The Force didn’t give him any more answers than his eyes did and it wasn’t worth the ache of trying to look anyway.

“I didn’t think they’d let you talk to me.” The unspoken _traitors_ fell hard and bitter like a challenge.

“They didn’t.” The Force was churning with something Rex didn't have a name for. “What did you want?”

There was a huge list of things Slick could want, and Rex wasn’t sure which would be the worst one.

“What made you turn? You were the good soldier. You were used as an _example_. So why would you, of all brothers, just decide to do what you wanted?” The disgust on his words felt like tar and Rex didn’t know how to put into words the things he’d felt in the Force the day he’d known in the core of what made him whoever he was supposed to be that he couldn’t stand by and let this happen.

The tangle of emotions and half formed motivations and _Force_ that’d pushed Rex so far he’d almost cracked under the pressure was something he still couldn’t figure out how to fit into either of the languages he knew. He hadn’t even let it over the bond or past his shields. It was this deep fissure, this thing that had changed everything Rex had thought was true about himself, had permanently changed the way Rex saw himself. It had started on Geonosis in the feeling of his brothers dying around him and a feeling of someone being destroyed from the inside out.

Of course, that was the thing Slick asked about.

Rex’s head churned, trying to find the words, the thing that had seemed so clear. Now that he’d had some time and it wasn’t all so immediate he knew that it’d been the Force. That he’d been driven until he couldn’t take the pressure that felt like it was building behind his eyes every second he was awake. The sensation of his chest being crushed and being surrounded by something faceless and nameless and _hungry_ stalking him through his dreams until he couldn’t sleep more than a few minutes without waking up on the edge of screaming.

The only path, the only choice that had made any sense, that had felt _right_ and _good_ was leaving. Was taking the Abiik-Kemir aliit and getting the hells off Coruscant as soon as he could.

Afterwards he’d seen why it’d been the right thing to do. The Force had been so there and on top of him that it’d made it all worth it. The work he had to do was even clearer when he saw that chip that’d been sitting in his skull. A bomb. He had no doubt at all that it had been the Force directing him the whole time. But how could he hope to explain what it all felt like? How could he even give anything close to enough of an explanation of the indecision, of how close he’d come to ignoring that instinct?

The final thing that had made up his mind may have been how badly off the Abiik-Kemirs really were. But it had started the second he’d set a toe on Coruscant and it hadn’t stopped until they’d been well on their way to Naboo.

He didn’t have the _words_ to explain that.

In _any_ langauge.

Slick scoffed. “See, you’re not so different. Force or not, you’re still a deserter. You did what everyone else thinks about doing. Dreams about doing. And you got away with it while the rest of us get punished for it.”

“I didn’t sell my brothers out to a Sith. I didn’t leave them open to an attack, to something that was guaranteed to get them killed. And I didn’t leave without knowing that they were going to be fine without me. It’s not wanting freedom that’s the problem, Slick. It’s what you did to your _brothers_ that’s the problem.”

“I love my brothers! This wasn’t about them, it was about making the jetiise _pay_!”

“Who paid for it, Slick? Who were the ones who paid for it? Because the Jedi look like they’re perfectly fine from where I’m standing. You know who doesn’t? Torrent. Your platoon. Your _squad_ , aruetii. Your brothers, your blood. That’s who paid!”

Rex kept the guilt that crawled up his throat like sick when he thought about the danger him leaving had put his vode in to himself. Slick whipped back like he’d been shot and his eyes were burning. The Force felt like a forest fire, something wild and massive and untamable bearing down on both of them with a fury of emotions that were too fast and too much for Rex to even begin to try and name them all. Most of them weren’t even from him or Slick.

The anger burned in his chest and he felt the numb cold of the Dark trying to pull at his thoughts like a living thing. Maybe it was a living thing.

It didn’t really matter, even if it was.

All of the sudden, the bonds were alive. These breathing things that flooded Rex’s mind and soul with something that felt like taking a deep breath after almost drowning. Ejasa and Ben were there, distant presences sending as much of a sensation of _calm_ as they could considering how far away they were. Silas was more immediate, cool wind blowing away the smoke and the feeling of an extension of durasteel hard, impenetrable shields closing around both of them, smearing both of their presences into the Force until they could disappear.

Slick had said something that Rex hadn’t heard in the face of the Force. It all seemed so far away. He could feel the _ache_ in the Force for his brothers and it was a terrifying sort of comfort to know that this thing, this massive thing that was so big that it broke Rex’s head apart trying to see it all and understand it, cared about his vode. Even if nothing else did, the Force mourned every single one of them.

“What was the real point of it, Slick? At least have the honor to be honest about why you did what you did.” And Rex was surprised that he could honestly say that he was okay walking away with just that.

Well that, and more meditation than he’d ever done at once, but he’d been expecting that after Ventress anyway.

///

Wolffe couldn’t say he was surprised by the brothers who showed. Cody, Stacks, Bins, Coric. They were all the same age bracket as Wolffe. As Rex. Who else would the dini’la jetii’vod have trusted with something like those stars damned slave chips? Bins looked vaguely sick after finishing off his report. Wolffe felt more than a little sick himself, but there was a flimsi thin comfort knowing at least some of his vod'ika'se weren’t being poisoned like that anymore. That he wasn’t being poisoned like that anymore.

He had no desire to hurt General Koon either. The idea of being forced to turn on him made Wolffe’s stomach swoop like the decking under his feet had disappeared. But the presence of the chips raised a lot of questions.

“Do we really think the Jedi know about the chips with what’s on them?” Wolffe looked to Cody.

The vod looked exhausted, more than Christophsis should’ve done to him. Even with what happened with Slick. Wolffe had an uncomfortable feeling that Cody was being crushed under the pressure. The vod hadn’t even been able to get the time to get his chip out. That cancerous thing was still sitting in his head.

Still, he bore up somehow. “I’m not sure. There’s no real way to find out without one of us giving away that we know something. We have to make a plan.”

“Maybe Rex can get Abiik-Kemir’s aliit to find something. I mean, they’re Mando, right? Mandalorians are supposed to have a sense of honor; they take life debts and things like that seriously.” Stacks rubbed at his face, eyes stuck to the table in front of them.

“What about the ARCs?” Asked Bins. Wolffe raised an eyebrow at him and caught Cody and Stacks doing the same.

Bins doubled down. “Really. Alpha wouldn’t take this if he knew what’s going on. Can you honestly tell me that Colt, Havoc, or Regent would let this go? We have to start bringing more people in anyway. What about Bly? Gree? Ponds?”

He was geared up to keep going, but Wolffe cut him off. “You’re right. We do have to bring more of us in, and Cody’s right that we have to vet everyone before we do. Rex brought me in because of the Force. At least, I think that’s why. Maybe. We run everyone through him first.” Wolffe had a good feeling about Bly, Alpha, and Rancor Battalion, but he wasn’t a jetii; so that didn’t mean shavit when it came to something this big. He had a good gut, but he didn’t trust it that far.

"I, Wolffe’s right. We have a way to contact him whenever we need to now. It’s not just knowing what’s on the chips that’s important; we have to find out why they were put there in the first place. We can all agree that the “aggression inhibitor” reason is a lie. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think the best evidence that we can get against whoever was going to use us to target the Republic and the jetiise is ourselves and these chips. _If_ …we can get someone to listen to us.” Cody’s shoulder curled with the last sentence.

The ruling from the Senate about the vode and their place in the Republic hadn’t been surprising, but it had been more than a little demoralizing. Wolffe was still angry about how _easy_ it was for them to throw him and his aliit at the Seppies to die for them while pretending they weren’t even _real_. He was also smart enough to know that if anyone caught wind of how much he wanted to kick the Chancellor off the top of one of those spires in the Jedi Temple, he’d be scrapped. So, privately seething about it had been the best he had to deal with it. Until now.

“We’ll get someone to listen to us. That vote wasn’t unanimous. We need to be smart about this though, vod. We need to have all of the evidence put together before we try anything. And we need to have every single brother de-chipped from the newest shiny to the oldest ori’vod too.”

Cody nodded. “Then we have our plan. We bring in more brothers higher in the chain of command, one at a time, vetting them through Rex. We get the brothers who are in danger of being scrapped or reconditioned out as quickly and quietly as we can if it’s possible. We figure out why the chips were there. We de-chip everyone. And we figure out who will listen to us when we have the answers we need.”

“What do we do about the Generals in all this?” Bins pulled them all up short.

Wolffe’s gut twisted at the thought of lying about something this massive, this important. He hadn’t had to lie yet. General Koon had been busy enough that he hadn’t noticed the mood sweeping the Wolfpack and spreading through the rest of the 104th yet. It was coming though. Sooner rather than later. The problem was that Wolffe wasn’t sure if that guilt was really his, or if it was something from one of the longnecks lessons.

“We lie when we have to.”

Guilt or no, let it never be said that Wolffe wasn’t pragmatic when he needed to be. He was a Commander for a reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Vod’ika-Younger Brother/Sibling  
> Aruetyc-Traitorous  
> Shabuir-Jerk, but much stronger in terms of how insulting it is  
> Jetii-Jedi  
> Hut’uun-Coward, a serious insult  
> Osik-Shit  
> Ka’ra-Stars  
> Aruetii-Traitor  
> Vode-Siblings/Brothers  
> Dini’la-Insane/Crazy
> 
> Everybody has a lot of questions and a few pieces of the puzzle. Cody has a lot to deal with and he needs for there to be more hours in the day. Or more caffeine.


	12. The Way(s) of the Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introspection abounds and discoveries are made.

Fives’ fingers were wrapped around the crystal so tight he could feel the edges digging into his skin. Bric and El-Les had been looking at them way too closely. 782 was still glaring at everything and everyone else had formed up around Fives like he was wounded. At least they’d fixed that teamwork issue General Ti had talked about in the first week of his training. The stray thought almost made Fives laugh, the nerves turning into something that made him feel disconnected and lightheaded. The Force making his head expand really wasn’t helping. The crystal felt like it was _part_ of him in the Force, and if that wasn’t one of the most distracting parts of this whole thing.

“Well, they don’t know anything for sure.” 4040’s voice was so falsely bright Fives could taste it.

“Suspicions are enough. It’s not like the longnecks need an excuse to do anything.” Echo’s bitterness was such a surprise that everyone turned to look at him, even 782. Echo glanced at all of them and shrugged before shaking his head and sitting practically on top of Fives.

“Not with General Ti around. She’s watching us, remember? If they want to get rid of us, they’ll have to explain it to her.” Droidbait was watching the other end of the room.

“No, if they want to get rid of Fives they’ll have to explain it to her. The rest of us don’t matter.” 782 spat.

“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t feel that way.” Fives couldn’t imagine that someone who felt that much horror at the conditions they’d seen in the testing room would be okay with what was being done to his brothers if she knew. It didn’t make sense.

782 opened his mouth like he was about to ask how the haran Fives would know before he looked over at him and just sighed instead. Droidbait sat on Fives’ other side, eyes still locked on the brothers sitting on their own drawers further down the line.

“It doesn’t matter how she feels unless the Jedi’ve already payed for us.” Everyone looked over at Echo again. “We aren’t the Jedi’s problem until we graduate. While we’re still cadets, the longnecks have complete control over everything about us. And we have to graduate to whoever’s in charge of the training’s standards. Right now that’s split three ways. If Bric and El-Les get too suspicious, they can do whatever they want and it’ll be regulation.”

“I thought the Jedi were in charge.” Droidbait was leaning around Fives to see Echo. The nerves of the entire squad were plunging into the Dark end of the Force and Fives didn’t know how to stop it. General Ti always pushed off this sense of calm and peace no matter how she felt and Fives had only just figured out how to keep his own emotions completely inside his shields.

“Only over what we learn in training. They pay for us as we leave Kamino, not before.”

“But where does that put Fives?” 782 cut Echo’s lecture off with a glare.

“It leaves me as a trainee that doesn’t technically belong to the General. So no safer than any of the rest of you.” Fives left the fact that he was probably in a more dangerous position than the rest of them combined unsaid, but they didn’t miss it. Not the way that all of them closed ranks even further.

“So no more dazzling displays, then. Shouldn’t be too hard. Basic competence, right?” 4040 was cheery again. Even with how false it sounded, the ice that had formed around their squad started to melt. Fives hadn’t even realized how tight his shoulders had gotten.

“At this point they might consider that a dazzling display,” 782 said. 4040 scoffed at that and even Echo looked a little offended.

“We’re here to learn right? So what if we had a breakthrough. They should be grateful.” 4040 laughed.

“Right.” 782 drew the word out and Droidbait started snickering.

“Hey, we might even make ARC troopers at this rate!” 4040 kept going. Osik stirrer.

Fives could almost feel 782’s eye roll at that.

“Even ARCs have to follow orders you know.” Echo pointed out with so little heat behind it that it didn’t even sound like him anymore.

“Yeah, but they make their own calls. Live a little, Echo. See what happened for Fives?”

“Technically I’m still following General Ti’s orders.” Even if he had no idea what the point of half of them were, he was getting stronger and had way more control than he’d had just a week ago.

“Still, you’re learning to do what they say ARCs learn to do. Think for yourself. Problem solve. Physical training. For a _lightsaber_!” 4040 was practically glowing with excitement.

“That I’m never going to have.” Fives rolled the crystal in his palm.

“Maybe some darjetii will drop theirs and you can pick it up.”

“I don’t think that’s how they work. General Ti said they had to be custom.” Never mind if the lightsaber katas were Fives’ favorite kind of moving meditation.

“Maybe that’s just Jedi lightsabers. Darjetii are different, so wouldn’t their lightsabers be different too?” Droidbait asked.

Why hadn’t Fives thought of that?

“Maybe.” He rolled the crystal in his palm again.

“Can I see that?” Echo asked, motioning at Fives’ hand.

“Again?”

“I want to see if it looks like one of the plasma focusers.”

“Why would she give me a plasma focuser?” Fives handed the crystal over, trying to brush off the feeling of that being more important than it looked.

“You said it felt like something in the Force, right? What if it’s like, a Force focuser or something? She said to keep it on you all the time, so maybe all Jedi need one when they’re learning how to use the Force.” Echo turned the crystal over in his hands, the sides reflecting the light in violet beams that Fives swore he could see on the drawers around them.

///

Ben breathed, the Force around him like the sandstorm that was raging outside. Dooku’s presence had stirred up all kinds of unpleasantness that had churned up the familial bonds between the three of them far more than they should’ve been when they were still this delicate. Even the bonds with Rex had been affected. And those hadn’t nearly as much weight attached to them. Still, Ben could feel the bonds between himself, Shmi, and Anakin gaining strength by the day. What was more of a question day by day was whether that made him feel better or worse.

Today, it made him feel somewhat better to have those anchors reforming.

The Force seemed to agree, a general sense of satisfaction and contentment surrounding him when he meditated on it. And Manda knew that wasn’t coming from any of them at the moment. Not on Tatooine with half of them off planet in what amounted to near-enemy territory. Still, the Lightness made him feel better than he had since they’d sensed Dooku on planet. They owed Senator Amidala another debt for whatever she’d done that made him leave.

He let himself drift on the gusts around him and tried to let his mind relax. He’d spent most of his mediation since gathering his crystal trying to sort through the feelings and memories that had brought to the surface. Having new memories without having to push through the pain and nausea of a migraine was nice, but the emotions they'd brought with them were highly unpleasant. He sorted through the emotions from Anakin’s near miss with Dooku again. He had to find a viable way to not be so distant while he was healing. With the bonds strengthening as they were, he could feel how much that distance hurt Shmi too. Not that she would’ve ever said a thing about it. And that was what made it that much more unacceptable.

Ben trailed along the glacier of his own guilt that always ran just under the surface of everything. He picked off pieces of it, letting the Light pool into the wounds under scars that hadn’t ever healed quite right. There was only so much the Force could do alone, but the scabbing cuts from his time with the mind healers at the Temple needed attention. Perhaps they would be like broken bones: never the same, but not broken forever. That would be nice. He had more of them than he’d realized before everything had happened.

The Light felt like a sunbeam around him, the Dark coiled through his chest like some kind of giant serpent. He didn’t feel as unsettled by the Dark as he had before. The vision had done him some good in that at least.

The life around them on Tatooine ran on a different kind of current than other places. It was like that on most desert planets in Ben’s admittedly unreliable experience. But the strangest part was how much alike the longtime residents tended to feel. Hardy and made almost entirely of calluses and making-do. It was something that underlined Shmi no matter how many years it’d been, and something that had seeped into Ben’s bones to a certain extent by proxy. How strange that he was the one who grew roots while the other member of their aliit who’d been born here had grown wings instead.

Though his roots were mostly in the Force these days. He’d found that getting too attached to any one planet was a dangerous thing to do. Seeing how badly Senator Amidala had been hurt when they’d had to leave Naboo had only reinforced that.

Which led Ben to the real reason he was looking for answers in the Force. Shmi and Anakin had always centered their efforts on the Outer Rim, but the Arkanis Sector in particular. The two of them were bound and determined to see Jabba’s head on a pike. In different ways of course, but the sentiment was still the same in the end. Ben was invested mostly out of a sense of deep seated _wrongness_ when he heard about the things the slug put other beings through. He didn’t have the right to even consider taking the moral high ground anymore. But that was the thing about having been a monster. Like recognized like after all. There were some benefits to knowing, intimately, what the scum of the galaxy would order an assassin to do.

Jabba was the type of being that would’ve used someone like Ben’s services back when he hadn't remembered anything more than commands and testing.

The question was whether Shmi and Anakin were the right beings for something like this. It wasn’t a question of competency. They were both fully capable of killing the Hutt. It was a question of the personal cost. Much of the work they had done since he’d begun training Shmi could be seen as somewhat vengeful. But there was a difference between taking vengeance on behalf of others and taking vengeance on behalf of oneself.

There was also the other looming question of what to do about Jango Fett.

Ben couldn’t deny the slowly building bubble of anger that was in his chest after hearing about violation after violation and abuse after abuse that the clones had suffered. That Rex had spoken about it so casually had set Ben’s blood on fire at the time. He hadn’t even registered the slight headache from the ghosts of memories of similar treatments and tests. So how much of the guilt for their treatment did Fett bear? Had he known? Ben found it hard to believe that he hadn’t. Whether he, Shmi, and Anakin liked Fett or not, he was a True Mandalorian once, and he still had those skills.

The fact was that it wasn’t at all likely that Fett hadn’t known about the treatment they had suffered. He had been a slave once. Why would he ever think it was acceptable for them to be enslaved? And on such a large scale, too. No. There was something else going on here. Some prize that precluded what little honor Fett still had. It was more than just Boba. It was something that was worth being dar’manda. Something that was worth the suffering of millions upon millions of innocent beings.

So, the ultimate question, the one that the raging sandstorm of the Force couldn’t seem to answer for Ben, was how much was this vengeance worth?

///

Rex stared at the purple-red blade humming in front of him. It’d saved his life. That was a weird thought to have about a weapon. Armor, a ship, a vod? Those all made sense. He’d seen the way the Jedi and the Abiik-Kemirs had deflected blaster bolts with their lightsabers on Geonosis. But weapons were made for one thing, and that wasn’t to keep someone’s head from getting cut off. But here he was. His head was still attached to his shoulders (no matter what Cody said) and he was still breathing.

The hum was soothing. He could still feel the connection to the crystal inside and he could hear it humming at the same frequency as the blade in the Force. That wasn’t as weird as Rex would’ve thought. He was used to feeling better with blasters in his hands. That went double for being in armor _and_ having blasters in his hands. What was different was how attached he was. He liked his DCs, but the idea of losing one of them didn’t really upset him much outside of not knowing what kind of blaster he’d have to replace them with now. Losing his lightsaber? That was upsetting.

He startled a little when the door to the closet they’d stuffed him and Silas in for the trip back to Tatooine opened. As soon has he felt Wolffe’s familiar signature he settled back down, deactivating the lightsaber while he was at it.

“So that’s what it looks like. I thought the 212th was full of osik when that cropped up. Damned Torrent infecting the 104th with their bantha fodder.” The griping was good natured, and Wolffe felt more centered than he had since Rex had told him about the chips.

“They couldn’t infect any of your vod’ikase with more bantha fodder than they already have on their own.”

“You say that now.” Wolffe sat across from Rex, the scar above his ear a sharp reminder of what had started all of this.

Still. Rex knew he’d been right to bring Wolffe in. The Force had guided him right where he’d needed to go. Ejasa had been right, but so had Ben. It really was almost impossible to ignore when it really wanted him to do something. There was some current, something the Force wanted him to do here, but it wasn’t as clear as it had been about Wolffe on Tatooine. Well, he knew how to deal with murky water as well as the next vod. It’d come out at some point.

“What’s going on?”

Wolffe’s presence in the Force shifted into something protective and warm under durasteel hard armor.

“We came up with a plan, but I’m going to need that comm information you gave Cody to make it work.”

Rex was still annoyed with himself for missing that meeting they’d had while he’d been meditating.

“Okay, what do you need me to do?” The Force was like some kind of thick soup around them, weight resting on every word. Memories of the sensation of loss and mourning Rex’d felt from the Force for his brothers ghosted along his nerves.

“We can’t do this with just the six of us, and we can’t bring in the Jedi. We thought we could run the other vode we want to bring into this through you. The Force brought me in, right? So it makes sense that you’d be able to figure out who’s safe to tell.” Rex heard Wolffe bite down on something he wanted to say and his signature echoed the tone, dimming microscopically in a way Rex had never noticed before.

Was it possible?

“Who’d you have in mind?” That would be too much of a coincidence. But what was it Ben’d said about coincidences with the Force?

There weren’t any.

“Bins brought up Rancor Battalion, and Alpha 17 would be one of the best brothers to have working on this. But we need to have everyone clear before we even think about bringing the jetiise in, and that means we need to bring in brothers who can clear other legions, not just ARCs. Brothers like Bly and Ponds. I like Bly for this, but I’m not like you. My gut's good, but it’s not the Force and this is too important to leave to a gut feeling.”

Rex felt something that was almost like a physical _push_ through his whole body when Wolffe brought up Bly. That was a good start, but there was something else; Rex could feel it.

“I’ve got a good feeling about Bly too. I’ll have to try and feel out the rest. It’s not like reading an HUD, there’s a lot of mud in the water.”

Less murk and mud in general by the day, though. That connection he’d made on Christophsis had made everything seem so much clearer; and every time he’d meditated afterwards he’d found something else. It was like all the conflict was being burned away, one necrotic cell at a time. He was finding his own version of the bedrock Ejasa had been telling him about, that he’d felt under all three of them through the bonds. Almost being on solid ground had lifted a weight off of his chest that he hadn’t even realized had been there in the first place.

“Of course.” The tension Wolffe had been carrying relaxed, his signature still warm under durasteel armor.

“When did you get all of this faith in the Force anyway, vod?” That was the center of the weight in the Force and it echoed in the marrow of Rex’s bones, just like the hum from the kyber crystal.

Wolffe leaned back and his eyes were far away, scanning for something.

“I don’t know. I’ve seen the things General Koon can do. He’s led us through things that he shouldn’t have been able to get us through without losing everyone. You surviving that witch is just…proof I almost didn’t even need at this point. We grew up seeing what people like Ben could do. It was kriffing stupid not to believe after seeing everything first hand like we have at this point. I still don’t like it when the General does di’kutla jarose, but there’s something there. And the chips…” Wolffe trailed off.

The Force pushed again and Rex felt his shoulders curl under the LAAT that was suddenly on top of them.

“They feel wrong, don’t they? It was like you had a parasite in your brain and as soon as it was gone, you could think. Everything was clear and it made sense.”

Wolffe looked at him, eyes as sharp as a vibroblade again. “What’re you trying to say?”

“I look at the chips and it’s like looking at those cordycep things Stacks told us about. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s just wrong in every way that I can look at something.”

“Well that makes sense. They’re made to do the same thing as those things. So maybe that’s just what droidmakers feel like in the Force. It’d be weirder if they didn’t feel wrong, I think. Something like that should feel wrong.”

“But does it feel like that to you?” ‘Because it doesn’t to Cody’ looped around Rex’s head so loud that he almost couldn’t tell if he’d said it out loud or not.

Wolffe cocked his head at Rex, his face in the half confused, half done-with-your-shavit expression he’d perfected the second he’d been made a Commander.

“Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?”

///

Qui-Gon watched Ahsoka go through the Ataru kata he’d given her. He could feel her drawing on the Force the way she was supposed to, the meditative state she’d gone into. She had a natural affinity for Ataru. She’d proven just how natural an affinity for the form and for combat she had on Christohpsis and on Geonosis before that. He was glad that her abilities, her talent had protected both her and at least some of the men from what could’ve easily wound up as a complete massacre. But the militarization of the Order still felt like they’d slipped down a cliff they hadn’t even seen until it was too late. Well, perhaps they’d slipped down that cliff when they’d taken the clones from Kamino in the first place.

And that was the heart of it. Well, the heart of the sickness that seemed to be plaguing Qui-Gon’s waking hours. This was wrong on a fundamental level. The Force itself mourned the passing of these men, mourned how they were being forced to live. He couldn’t make that sensation that wept in core of his being at all hours coincide with what Yoda insisted was the right thing to do. There were Sith running the Separatists, and Qui-Gon had more of a reason than most to want to apprehend those Sith. Something he was keenly aware the Council was monitoring him for in addition to everything else. But the clones had no real place in this. They had no real reason to have to live and die they way they were being forced to. The things Slick had been saying were still in the back of Qui-Gon’s head. The stubborn, protective set of Commander Cody’s jaw when he’d deflected Qui-Gon from speaking to Rex was a constant presence whenever Qui-Gon closed his eyes.

It wasn’t only that the clones’ existence didn’t make any kind of sense either logically or in the Force. It was also watching his padawan turn into a soldier in front of his eyes, and having to shape her into a soldier rather than a peacekeeper and a disciple of the Force. Ahsoka had so many talents, so much good that she could do. She was unfailingly kind, compassionate to fault, attuned to the Light in a way that many in the Order could only hope to be. And all of that was being turned against her in the name of war. One could not be kind or compassionate when one was fighting for one’s life.

He called out a correction and she started the section over again, keeping her arms in the position he’d told her to. He felt the Commander’s presence behind him and turned to look.

That was strange.

There was some sort of resolution, some sense of discomfort that was gone. In its place was a new scar above Cody’s ear and a sense of relief that was leaking out of his shields in waves.

“Yes, Commander?”

“There are some forms you need to sign off on before we reach Kamino, sir.”

“Yes, of course.” Qui-Gon took the datapad from Cody’s hands, keeping a watchful eye on Ahsoka’s progress as he read over the work.

“How is your head, Commander Cody? I read Coric’s report.” There were a lot of head injuries going around apparently. Another thing to wonder about. The Force had no insight into the matter either.

“Much better, sir, thank you.” Cody was watching Ahsoka with something that looked like how he’d been watching his men during their drills. Professional concern and interest.

“That’s good to hear.”

Ahsoka went into the swarm, lightsaber humming through the air in precise cuts that were so fast the blade was a blur. She’d improved since the last time she’d tried that particular part of the exercise, and Qui-Gon felt a warm buzz of satisfaction. Regardless of the circumstances, it was always a pleasure to see a student improve.

He turned back to the datapad, an eye still on Ahsoka and an “eye” still on Commander Cody. Qui-Gon could feel something like a loose thread at his fingertips with the loss of that sense of discomfort.

“Is there anything else I should know before we arrive at Kamino?”

“No sir. Everything is already organized.” Cody’s voice was almost as opaque as everything else but that naked relief that was bleeding past his shields.

“Right.” And it was. For all intents and purposes, nothing was out of place. Except for how easily the GAR was replacing these beings and how little protest the rest of them seemed to be able to mount.

“I’ve also made sure everything is prepared for when we reach Corellia for repairs. All those forms need before I file them is your signature.” It was a pointed push and Qui-Gon was once again impressed by how efficient this man was.

The Council could learn a thing or two.

Ahsoka landed from the last flip in the sequence, breathing heavily and clearly surprised that Cody was there. They’d have to work on her awareness of her surroundings again.

///

The latest reports from Coruscant were quite unsettling. Shaak felt the holes that were being left in the reports and wondered when the ones Adi had taken to sending out to everyone else that was being left out of the loop would arrive. Even with the missing information, there was a clear pattern of near misses and impossible escapes that made the overall picture more than a little disheartening. Missing this Ventress on Christophsis was a truly unfortunate part of that entire operation, though the Sergeant’s betrayal bore further meditation. She could ask Qui-Gon more when he arrived, and perhaps find a way for Fives to speak to Cody as well. It would be good for him to hear a first hand account of another clone using the Force.

That Dooku was not the one to train Ventress once more raised the question of who and where the Sith Master could be. That particular pair of questions had arisen far too many times in the short period that this war had been raging for Shaak’s taste. It ran against her instincts in a way that had her looking for where the akul was hidden. They were just out of sight, and the time that it took to find them could mean the same kind of death.

Still, Shaak _knew_ that they could find the answer if the Order pulled together.

She watched the storm and the waves out the window of her office and felt the Force echoing them in its own way. Pulling at the strings of Ben’s time on Kamino had confirmed the theory. It was not an ideal place to be instructing a padawan. Particularly a padawan that required the kind of focused instruction and attentiveness that Fives did. He deserved a proper education and Kamino was making that difficult.

It was interesting (and something that convinced her that his discovery had not been a coincidence) that his connection to his squad had accelerated his ability to learn the more difficult-to-grasp concepts she’d been introducing him to. It was not only that he was clever in his own right, it was that his squad helped him figure out how to apply the things he learned in a way that most padawans didn’t have access to. They were his teachers in the same way as Shaak was when it came to the Force. It changed how she’d thought of that kind of familial connection. There was a familial aspect to a Jedi’s lineage. That was as natural as it was unavoidable. It had the potential to be both vastly beneficial and completely devastating. But that limited sort of connection was very different from the closeness and reliability she’d seen all of the most successful squads demonstrate to and for each other. She realized that in a way, it was perfectly obvious that this would be the result of Fives’ connection to his squadmates.

Experience was the best teacher and his experiences were defined and colored by the four beings he spent the most time with out of everybody else in the galaxy.

Perhaps it was time for the Order to reconsider how it treated that sort of connection.

The thought made her stomach swoop with nerves that she released into the Force. She had to meditate on it further, but if that was why the Force had led her to Fives then who was she to stand in its way? She was aware that she already had the answer, but it was so radical that she had to make sure that she was hearing it right.

Shaak Ti had been a Jedi her whole life. She believed in the things the Order was meant to stand for and she had complete faith in the Force. The idea of a change to something so basic and fundamental was almost inconceivable to her. Tradition was the foundation of the stability the Order had enjoyed for hundreds of years. But when viewed in the face of how much the galaxy had changed in the past few months alone, that same tradition began to look far more like stagnation.

They had no way to take in and instruct beings like Fives. They had no way to assist beings that had been through traumas like Ben’s in their recovery. They hadn’t the slightest idea how to approach beings like the rest of the Abiik-Kemirs. And in the current system, they didn’t have the flexibility needed to develop ways to do any of those things. Shaak Ti’s own life within the Order was colored by a certain amount of disparagement for how closely she still identified with her own people and Shili, despite her complete devotion to the Order. That same disparagement had colored Plo's and Ahsoka’s experiences as well. It wasn’t xenophobia so much as the expectation that the Council’s wishes and the Temple’s culture should take precedence over whatever else a Jedi may happen to be.

How Tholme had trained Quinlan had led to a few issues. But Quinlan was comfortable with who he was and hadn’t been hurt the same way for being who and what he was.

And if it was that bad for someone like Shaak, who had been raised in the Temple, how much worse would it be for someone like Fives who had nothing to his name but a shared identity with his squad, with his brothers?

She was firm in her conviction that they deserved to have the Jedi path open to them. The Force was firm on that point as well. She could feel it as surely as she could feel the breath in her lungs and the shudders through Tipoca as the waves battered the city. She had to find a way to approach Adi and Plo about this. Perhaps Kit as well. The most difficult part of all of this, however, was doing it in a way that didn’t expose her padawan to any unnecessary risks. Perhaps that was another thing to discuss with Qui-Gon when he arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Haran-Hell  
> Osik-Shit  
> Darjetii-Sith  
> Aliit-Family  
> Dar’manda-The state of no longer being Mandalorian, being separated from Manda, forgetting oneself  
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Vod’ikase-Younger Brothers/Siblings  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Di’kutla-Idiotic  
> Jarose-Insane acts of reckless stupidity
> 
> Sorry about the delay on this chapter! I had to rearrange the order of the chapters I was writing and it got me a little lost. I've got a pretty good idea of where they're all going for now, so it shouldn't take me anywhere near as long with the next one. Shaak Ti surprised me a little bit, I hadn't planned on her being put into the exact position she's in, but the more I looked at it, the more it made sense. I also just need more Shaak Ti in my life. Wolffe has begun his descent into madness without even realizing that he did it in the first place. Then again, his canon life was kind of a descent into madness if the episodes the 104th was in are any indication, so it won't be that different for him.


	13. What Do You Want Me to Do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which conversations are had and Cody wonders if he can kill his brother

“You know I know you’re there, right?” Anakin turned to look at Ben who was standing in the door like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed in Anakin’s room anymore.

Ben sighed, fond exasperation coming over the bond like a balm after how stretched and disturbed they’d been the past few weeks. “I was trying to be polite.”

“Since when?” If a door was left open it was free game.

Anakin smirked at the slight huff and turned back to the diagnostics. He’d gotten lucky, nothing important in his helmet had gotten broken or fried. With a patch and some paint, it’d be good as new.

Ben sat on the bunk, the holodisplay turning his mask blue. His entire signature was blue, midnight curled around him protectively and sky reaching out in root-like patterns that delved into the other colors that painted the Force like a sunset. Anakin could see him facing the display out of the corner of his eye and feel the curiosity over the bond. Concern was draped over the bond in a pastel, blush pink that radiated warmth and safety.

“I’m okay. She didn’t hurt me, I didn’t break anything. I’m fine. Rex is..well, he’s not technically _fine_ , but he’s not broken either. Just a little Force happy. I think.” That’s what it felt like. At least, that’s what it felt like in Anakin’s experience; but he wasn’t going to be the one to ask Rex why exactly he’d spent half his waking hours submerged in the Force so deeply that his signature was almost drowning in it.

“Your buir is better equipped to help Rex than either of us are at the moment.” Ben was warm in the bond, and Anakin could feel that it was one of the better days he’d had since Geonosis. Despite the undercurrent of worry that coated everything as well as speeder oil.

“Your buir too, vod. She adopted you, remember? If you weren’t stuck with us before, you’re welded in now.” Anakin tapped Ben’s knee with his elbow. Ben suddenly had rosy pink under all that midnight blue.

“Hadn’t we passed that threshold a long time ago?” Ben’s voice was so light it sounded like he was only joking, but there was a deep dark thread that ran through them and made the room feel smaller and colder than it was.

Anakin pushed as much trust and love as he could over the bond as gently as he could manage and turned towards Ben.

“Aliit an tome. Sorry, but you’re stuck with us.”

“Right.”

The heaviness passed through the air and they both sat breathing in the renewed warmth of the Force around them.

Anakin shook himself and turned back to his helmet, pretending not to notice his elbow still resting on Ben’s knee. It felt a little bit like pretending not to see the mirages that flickered behind his eyes in the empty spaces: something ephemeral that would disappear if he did anything to acknowledge it happening. That was a new feeling for being around Ben, and Anakin didn’t like it.

If there was one thing he wasn’t going to let happen (that list was longer than he was tall) it was let this turn into some sort of awkward estranged sibling situation like the ones he’d read about and seen in holodramas.

“Do anything interesting other than dethrone a Hutt while we were gone?” Anakin dug his elbow in a bit harder and darted away from the pinching fingers reaching for his arm before settling back into his work.

“We didn’t do the heavy lifting for that; it was all Senator Amidala. She really is quite formidable.”

“At least someone in that mess of a Senate has gett’se.”

Ben snorted, moving his leg so that Anakin’s elbow was resting more on muscle than bone. “Where does that leave Jabba though? There’s an opening.”

“A big one. We haven’t had an opportunity this good in a while.” ‘Saber or no, there was no way Anakin would sit out putting Jabba’s head on a pike unless he was dead.

“Aren’t you concerned about what could happen with the power vacuum that would open up?” Ben’s voice had the tone that meant he was after something different than the thing he’d just said and Anakin felt like he’d walked himself into a trap.

“That’s Buir’s job. I’m the worst at politics, remember?”

Ben sighed.

“Yes, how could I forget? Honestly though, An’ika. I don’t know if we’re the right people to take advantage of that opening.” Navy blue twined around the midnight, the rose turning more into the pastel of concern.

“Did you see something?” No point in talking around it. Even if that was probably what Ben wanted.

“Not in so many words. I don’t know. It just feels different when it’s personal. Up to now. It’s not that the work hasn’t had a personal aspect to it. But…” Ben trailed off, frustration with his lack of words coming over the bond.

“But this is more; you’re right. I mean, we’ve been looking to go after Jabba for a while. It’s the first step to getting into Hutt territory, yeah. But we all know it’s more than that. We can’t sit this out and let someone else do it. Whatever it takes is worth the price.” Even if they had to work with the beings that populated the palace, it would be worth it to get rid of the slug.

“But what if the price is something you and Shmi can’t pay, An’ika?”

“Okay, what did you see?”

“Nothing. Really, I didn’t see anything. It’s just a feeling. It doesn’t matter.” The Coruscanti accent was thick and crisper than ever and the guilt tasted like the metal tang of adrenaline on Anakin’s tongue.

“Since when do feelings not matter?” Anakin turned towards Ben again, hand reaching for his brother’s shoulder before he caught himself and forced it into his lap.

Ben turned towards the half-closed door, shoulders so tense they looked like they’d snap. They sat like that for a few minutes, stuck in the Force around them again, Anakin feeling too skittish to try and get anything over the bond despite the overwhelming sense of nebulous worry.

After what felt like way too long, Ben looked down again before turning back towards Anakin.

“ I know what I am. No! Don’t-this isn’t one of those times where you try and reassure me that it’s all fine. That’s not what this is about, vod’ika. I know that I can’t remember everything that I did. That there is blood on my hands that I don’t remember putting there. I know that the both of you have blood on your hands too, and whether you think that’s my fault or not, the blame is at least partially on me for teaching you the things I did. Just let me finish.” He put a hand on Anakin’s still-healing arm to silence him and the guilt and regret flowed like bitter acid between them.

“When we go ahead with going after Jabba, because Manda knows you and your buir aren’t going to let this go, I don’t want you two to sacrifice the good and Light in you just to see him dead. I know it’s selfish, and I know that it’s self centered, but if you two were to loose yourselves to that part of the Dark, I don’t know if I could live with the guilt of having enabled that to happen. I don’t want to see you two get twisted into the things the wells in the Dark can turn beings into. And I can’t let go of the feeling that that is exactly what will happen. This is revenge, and as much as we’ve taken revenge for others, you’ve never been in a situation where you could take this kind of revenge for yourselves. It’s different. I don’t know why I know that it is, but it is.”

Ben’s head was still held high, but he felt like a piece of spun glass in the Force, a breath away from shattering. The guilt was like the entire Dune Sea was piled on top of his soul, sand in his mouth. Anakin could barely breath with it all, and he wasn’t even feeling all of it.

He breathed, taking in the feeling of air in his lungs, the Force moving through him, his heart beating as steady and sure as ever. The childish half-formed wish that Buir could help with this made Anakin feel like a rancor was tearing at him with the shame. He reached out to his ori’vod, the warmth of the living untying a knot in his chest that he hadn’t noticed.

“Do you think that we should choose? That we get to say what we will and won’t do?” Anakin’s voice was quiet, but it still sounded too loud in the dead air of his room.

Ben answered without even a nanosecond’s worth of hesitation.

“Of course I do.”

“Do you think that we’re responsible for the choices we make?” The diagnostic made a noise and Anakin batted at it, not taking his eyes off of his brother’s mask for even a moment.

“You know I do. I’ve said that, I’ve _lectured_ you about that.” The forced laugh was an ugly thing that sounded like a broken vocabulator.

“Do you think we would have been better off without you?” The question tasted like sand and ash and a thousand other dry, dead things.

The hesitation made Anakin’s core feel like it’d been cracked as deep as it could go.

How had they missed this, how had _he_ missed this?

“I can tell you, for a fact, that without you we would both have been dead and gone. Maybe not physically, but living like that will kill anyone. There are some scars, some things that cut so deep that you have no choice but to learn to live with the damage. You can heal, and you can get better, but you’re always going to be different. You know that better than anyone else in this entire Force-damned galaxy, ori’vod. You freed us, you taught us how to protect ourselves, you gave us the tools to help free other beings. And you did that while you were pulling yourself out of the deepest, darkest pit it was possible for you to be in basically all by yourself.

“It’s not selfish to be scared of us breaking ourselves or to want us to stay safe and ourselves. But it is not your fault if we don’t. It is not your fault if we fail, or get hurt, or get lost, or Fall, or any of that. It is not your fault if we bite off more than we can handle. It is not your fault if we make stupid decisions. If I make stupid decisions, that is not on you. If you believe that we are free beings with agency who make decisions and have to live with the consequences of them, then it’s not on you to carry that for either of us. Even if you want to. I love you so much. But that doesn’t mean that I want you to carry the weight of my choices, and I know that Buir feels the same. Actually, she’d probably be mad that you tried to do that for her anyway.”

The laugh was choked and sounded more than a little stuffed.

“You say that like it’d be easy to just change the way you think. I can’t just…” Ben shrugged, words seeming lost again.

Oh, kriff it anyway.

Anakin sat next to him on the bed, wrapping an arm around Ben as tightly as he could and leaning half of his weight on his brother.

“I know you hate it when I say things like this, but the only thing that I would want you to do, is to just _be_ there. You don’t have to try and protect me. I’m not going to speak for Buir, but I don’t want you to try and take all the pain or Darkness for me. I make my choices. I do stupid things. I go into things that probably aren’t good for me in ways that I don’t even want to try and think about. But it isn’t on you to try and protect me from that, even if you are my ori'vod. And Jabba is on that list. You have enough to worry about on your own. If you want to help, and I mean really want to help, then let us help you. After Geonosis, I don’t even know what that looks like anymore. But you shouldn’t have to pull yourself out of that pit without help again. Not when we’re right here.”

It was quiet for a long time after Anakin finished talking, but it wasn’t the same too-heavy feeling as before. Ben sat still, leaning back into Anakin and feeling like he was meditating a little bit.

“So what you’re saying is that the best way I could possibly help you is to just exist on the same general plane of the galaxy as the rest of you.”

“Just keep breathing, yeah. That’s about right.”

///

Qui-Gon looked out the window; the storm and waves were truly awe inspiring. Tipoca shuddered minutely under them, the waves testing the city’s structure. The scent of the Alderaanian Mountain Green in the teapot was warm and homey and Shaak’s presence was a balm in the face of what he’d been witness to on the campaign. He could sense a purpose behind her, though. She was always driven, always had a level of intensity. But something had galvanized her.

Part of Qui-Gon wondered if it was the rumored shunning that was happening in the Council. The Order at large had, internally, separated into a few factions, most of the lines these days falling mostly on whether this war was any of their business. But the memory of what’d been done to the Abiik-Kemirs was still a factor in who’d wound up on what side. Master Gallia was still trying to make sure that they had enough pull in the Senate to be secure. Their public image was a question of how the individual being felt about Jedi and their affairs on any given day.

The only thing that had saved them publicly so far was presenting a united front. The Council arguing amongst themselves and shutting half their members out of important discussions wasn’t helping keep the illusion of that united front.

Shaak waited until they’d both had a chance to enjoy the tea before she spoke.

“What really happened with the Sergeant?”

Qui-Gon had expected that. Out of everyone, Shaak was in the best position to get to the heart of the matters of both the clones and Ben.

“What we said in the report. He believes that we are enslaving him and the rest of the men, that making us vulnerable to Ventress would be a blow for them all. Instead, he got much of Torrent Company killed, then tried to make it appear as though one of subordinates was responsible. What’s to be done with him?”

Qui-Gon wasn’t certain what the consequences should be. Slick had killed _so many_ of the men. He’d gotten even more of them killed by blowing up the weapons. The entire disaster that was the 212th’s part in the Christophsis campaign was only as bad as it was because of what he’d done.

“I’m not certain. I suspect the Kaminoans will either recondition him or kill him. Given how little the flash training seemed to do, I suspect they will try to have him killed. I will see what I can do. He’s the first to turn on the Republic and the Order in such a visible, devastating way. That isn’t something to be swept away or taken lightly. I had hoped you knew more about what happened with him.”

“Ahsoka was there when Cody and Stacks caught him. She may know more. But the men did most of the footwork. Cody would know the most.” Qui-Gon took another sip of the tea and let himself savor the deep, warm flavor.

“Perhaps I’ll ask him about it then. How is life in the GAR treating you?” Shaak poured herself some more tea.

“I’m too old for this. I was too old to take a padawan, and I am too old to be a soldier in a war like this.”

“You’re doing well. Ahsoka has improved so much in just a year, Qui-Gon. Besides, if anyone is truly too old to take a padawan, it’s Master Yoda. As far as this war is concerned, it is better for these men to be led by someone who will care for their lives and their deaths than for them to be led by someone who sees them as a means to an end.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Qui-Gon had wondered how long it would be before someone showed some ugly colors.

“Some are not as careful with the lives of these men as they should be. Unfortunately it isn’t anything that would make the Council do something about it. But I’m watching the situation.”

“Let me know if I can do anything.”

“I’ll certainly let you know if I find something concrete.” Shaak settled back in her seat, lekku twitching in a way he hadn’t seen since before she’d been placed on the Council.

“Is there something else on your mind?” There was a strange weight to the air and Qui-Gon opened himself to the Force, searching for guidance.

“I had wondered if you had any insight on the subject of Ben or Rex, given that you’ve seen one of the Abiik-Kemirs and the Captain so recently.”

Qui-Gon found that he wasn’t at all surprised by how much Shaak already knew about. Master Gallia was brutally efficient. There was something under the surface of those questions, but he wasn’t going to go digging without due cause.

“I’m afraid Silas was somewhat tight-lipped on the matter of his brother. He was willing to share insight into the techniques Ventress used, but he didn’t illuminate anything about the conditioning itself. I suspect that Alpha 17 or one of the other older clones would be the best beings to ask about how much influence Hibir’s training had on the clones as a whole. As far as Rex is concerned, he has gained more control and understanding of his potential than I would’ve expected for such a short period of time. He’s much more powerful than I’d have ever guessed given that we hadn’t sensed him when we first met him. However, I admit that I’m more than a little concerned about what exactly they may be teaching him. There are many different ways of using the Force, but someone like that Falling could be disastrous.” The fact that Rex was intimately familiar with Kamino, the training, and how the GAR functioned wasn’t something that needed to be explored at present.

“I expect that will always be the case when it comes to the Abiik-Kemirs on the subject of Ben. Rex, on the other hand, is much more relevant at this point.” Shaak paused, tilting her head. Qui-Gon could almost hear her parsing through her words, trying to find the right question.

He sipped his tea and leaned back into his chair, taking the chance to observe the storm outside again.

“I believe that there are more with that gift amongst the men. And I believe that they were chosen for specific purposes. I don’t think that any of the men with this gift posses it through random chance or for some nebulous reason.”

“Do you think one of them is the Chosen One?” Who had Shaak found while she had been alone here?

“No. Not anything like that. More the sense that all of these men matter. That they are going to change and shape how we Jedi and the galaxy as a whole live and deal with other beings. That those amongst them with this gift are going to be a catalyst for that change simply by existing as they do.”

For how calm her words were, Qui-Gon found his foundation rattled by how radical they were. Especially for someone like Shaak. She was a friend, but she was also a Jedi to her core, and he’d had strong disagreements with her in the past for that seemingly blind faith in the Order and the Council.

He took another long drink from his cup, more to give himself time to think of a response than for the taste, which didn’t even register anymore.

Finally, he’d gathered himself up enough to form somewhat of an appropriate response to that.

“Would it be accurate to say that you believe the Order needs reform?” Of course, that was the only part of that appropriate response he managed to get out. Typical.

Shaak jerked back, shoulders tensing on reflex before she cocked her head again, eyes searching some horizon.

“We need to be able to evolve. It was necessary before, but in this time of upheaval and rapid change it has now become a survival imperative. I strongly believe that unless we develop some measure of adaptability and flexibility, the Order as we know it will cease to be. It simply won’t be possible for us to continue on if we cannot change and grow along with the Force and the rest of the galaxy.”

“You know what you’re saying, Shaak?” Qui-Gon didn’t know why he was bothering to ask; Shaak Ti lived with purpose.

“I am aware of what it means, Qui-Gon. The Force has been demanding we change, and unless we listen, we will be crushed.”

Qui-Gon had waited a very long time for someone else to feel the same way he did. Now that the day had come, he had no idea what he was supposed to do to help start fixing things.

///

Cody didn’t know what he was doing here. General Ti had asked him to visit these cadets and talk to them, but she hadn’t said why or what about. The knowing glint in her eyes had made something uncomfortable turn in his gut, but he knew he couldn’t say no. Besides, what harm could a few cadets do? That was a stupid question.

He felt it the second he got into the room.

He’d figured out what the sense of someone using the Force to look at him felt like pretty quickly after he’d figured out what Rex meant by that. Having the darjetii do it had been what really seared it into his skull.

Feeling that sensation of something big and powerful looking at him wasn’t something he was going to miss. Even if he was about as Force Sensitive as a block of duracrete. His real question was which one of these verde’ika was responsible. General Ti’s secretive sort of light in her eyes made so much more sense now. Not that Cody was at all comfortable knowing that she knew enough about Rex to think he was up to a task like this. Cody was going to kill his vod’ika the next time he saw him, just on principal for doing something so completely di’kutla. Utreekov.

Nothing for it now.

Cody took off his bucket and looked them over again. He caught it on the brother in the middle. There was something there, right behind the eyes. That same sort of look that the jetiise and Rex got when they were looking for something Cody couldn’t see. If that wasn’t the jetii’vod, Cody would eat his blacks. How he hadn’t been found out already was something Cody had to put down to the will of the Force. How much he’d had to do that lately grated on his nerves and he couldn’t help but wonder how the jetiise could do that all the time without wanting to tear their hair out or whatever the species equivalent of it was.

“You’re Domino Squad, right?”

“Yes, sir.” Only one of them talked.

This was going to go so well.

“General Ti asked me to talk to you about on-field application of certain highly specialized skill sets that some of you might have.”

What she’d actually said was that she had a squad of cadets who could use the motivation of a high ranking officer speaking to them personally. For people who weren’t supposed to lie, the Jedi did a lot of that.

How terrible that Cody and the rest of his brothers learned by observation.

“We’re not exactly the top ranking squad. Are you sure she didn’t mean someone else?” The brother all the way on the other side of the group from the leader spoke up. He had a strange accent for a vod and the one next to him gave him a horrified look that he completely ignored in favor of looking at Cody head on.

Maybe this wouldn’t go so badly after all.

“I’m sure I didn’t mishear the General, and you said that this was Domino Squad yourself.”

“Technically that was 782.”

“Are you always this much of a mir'sheb?” Cody could hear Wolffe cackling from here.

“Sorry, sir. 4040 doesn’t know when to listen sometimes. Maybe that’s what General Ti wanted you to talk to us about.”

“And what’s your name?” Cody was already trying to figure out how to get the chips out of them before they did anything. Bins still hadn’t figured out what all else the damned things could do, and who knew if a brother could keep their mouth shut about certain things while it was still there. They hadn’t had to test that so far, and Cody wasn’t about to be the one to do that.

“We call him Echo, that’s Fives, that’s Droidbait, I’m 782, and the mir'sheb is 4040.” 782 gave Echo and 4040 a sharp look when he introduced them.

Cody’s chest warmed at the names. At least they had taken those deeper than the numbers. That was a good sign too.

“Cody. I think she was more concerned about the similarities between Fives and Rex than about questioning orders like 4040.”

All of them went ghostly pale and Cody was idly concerned that they might pass out.

“He’s not a deserter. Fives isn’t like that!” Droidbait lept to his defense before he remembered who Cody was. His face went even paler (Cody hadn’t thought that was possible) and his mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

Cody bit down the still-instinctual desire to defend his brother; this wasn’t about that, anyway.

“I didn’t think he was, and I wouldn’t even imagine trying to speak for General Ti, but that wasn’t the tone she used when she asked me to do this. I know the rumor mill is alive and well, even this far out. A rumor like the one about Rex would be one of the fastest spreading ones.” In fact, it had been _the_ news in the entire GAR for a month. “If I had to guess, I think that’s why she wanted me to talk to you.”

Everyone very carefully didn’t look at Fives.

Really, how had they managed not to get caught before now?

“I’m not going to tell anyone and I’m not going to turn you in. Vode an.” He left it at that. Their chips really had to come out, but he wasn’t about to spend an entire day arguing the truth out of a squad of cadets. He had a battalion of brothers to clear of the things and a mountain of forms to fill out that got higher by the second.

“Um.” Fives pulled something out of his pocket and stepped forward, Echo making an aborted move to try and stop him. Fives looked Cody in the eye, but it was very clear that he didn’t want to. He was holding onto whatever he’d had in his pocket like it was a lifeline.

Cody waited. He really had no idea what he was supposed to do with this.

Throwing Rex out an airlock was looking more and more appealing by the second.

“Do you know what this is?” Pulling his fingers away from the thing in his palm took visible effort and Cody pretended he couldn’t see the tremors running through his arms.

Did Cody know what that was.

Did Cody know what that was.

How in all of the kriffing Corellian Hells was he supposed to help someone with that?!

“That would be a lightsaber crystal.” And where had a kriffing cadet gotten a fekking lightsaber crystal anyway?

“I told you it wasn’t a Force focusing thing, didn’t I!” 4040 crowed.

Cody sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Buir-Parent  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Aliit an tome-Family all together  
> Gett’se-Nerve  
> Manda-Heaven  
> Darjetii-Sith  
> Verde’ika-Little Soldiers  
> Di’kutla-Idiotic  
> Utreekov-Idiot (literally empty head)  
> Jetii’vod-In this context, more meaning Force Sensitive Brother/Sibling  
> Mir'sheb-Smartass  
> Vode an-Brothers all
> 
> To quote James T. Kirk “If change is inevitable, predictable, beneficial, doesn’t logic demand that you be a part of it?” Qui-Gon doesn’t appreciate being on the receiving end of his own arguments. Poor Cody is stuck with all the paperwork that all of this generates. Whatever changes they all make will inevitably lead to more bureaucratic nonsense for him to deal with so that Qui-Gon doesn’t forget something important. To clarify, if someone is shielding properly, the feeling of them using to Force to look at people won’t really be detectable to someone who’s not Force Sensitive. The Force User in question may also choose to not shield what they’re doing or they may not shield because they genuinely don’t know how to (though some would consider it pretty impolite to do that in the first place).


	14. Coruscanti Comms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Palpatine makes his moves and Rex and Cody deal with Force issues

Padmé winced at the bitter taste of her caf. She’d managed to put a dent in her to-do pile, but at the cost of warm caf. Her schedule looked like Theed during the Festival of Lights with how many meeting she had to get to during the day. It was the lunch one that was making her triple check everything. Palpatine had been pushier than usual ever since Naboo had opened its doors to refugees seeking asylum. He had singled out a few in particular that he was interested in. Jamilia had effectively stonewalled him, but with Neeyutnee being sworn in and coronated in the next month, he’d started needling Padmé for details about those refugees.

It wouldn’t be such a problem if she knew what he wanted with them. The fact was that the Senate was corrupt and beings like the Abiik-Kemirs would be bolder than most in pointing out exactly how that made life in the Outer Rim difficult. But Padmé had a feeling that it was about something else. There was no point in exposing them to more of Coruscant and the Republic’s politics. She was well aware of how different the rules truly were in the Outer Rim. After the Occupation, she’d had no choice but to get acquainted with that way of doing things.

Regardless, she couldn’t waste the opportunity to try and bring forward a few of the issues that they’d need to deal with in the Senate. The ruling about the clones was divisive, and Padmé was holding onto the ever-fading hope that they might be able to use the backlash to try to get the clones proper rights and treatment another way. This meeting with Palpatine might be a good chance to broach that subject. But again, Padmé had a stone in her gut. He hadn’t seemed particularly upset about the ruling the last time she’d had the chance to talk to him about it. Even with Commander Fox standing right there, he’d point blank said that there was nothing more he could do and that that was just the way of things! Then proceeded to tell Commander Fox to do something that she hadn’t caught because she’d been too shocked by how undisturbed he’d been by this turn of events.

Eirtaé knocking on the door brought her back to her office.

“My lady, Master Adi Gallia is here to see you and Master Shaak Ti is on the line.”

Padmé straightened up and took a breath.

“Alright, Eirtaé, let please Master Gallia in and put Master Ti’s call through to my office.”

Eirtaé nodded and seconds later, Master Gallia swept through the door with a near silent rustle of robes. She looked even more exhausted than she had the last time Padmé had seen her, but the durasteel determination was still in her eyes.

“Master Gallia, it’s good to see you.”

“You as well, Senator Amidala. We owe you some thanks for the information you gave us on Dooku.”

“I’m just glad I could help.” The air was awkward as they avoided the bantha in the room and both of them jumped a little at the beep from the holocomm.

“Hello, Master Ti.” Master Gallia spoke first as soon as the display was steady.

“Good afternoon, Master Gallia, Senator Amidala. I thank you for your time.” As usual, Master Ti’s voice was even and calm, and even over the comm, there was a ghost of the peace that surrounded her.

“Of course. What can I do for you?” Padmé got right to business, clock ticking away the seconds in the back of her head.

“Well, Senator. I’m afraid that we have to ask what other information you may have about Ziro the Hutt and his dealings with Count Dooku.” Master Gallia started, datapad already in hand.

Padmé had been waiting for them to ask.

“Only what I told you during our first meeting Master Gallia. There was strong circumstantial evidence that he might be involved with Separatist activity, but not enough to warrant bringing it to the Coruscant Guard. I’m afraid that that was the only lead I really had. It was a stroke of luck that he happened to be talking to Dooku when I was there. I turned everything I had over to you and the Guard.”

“We wanted to know if you saw anything that indicated any kind of tampering with the clones.” Master Ti was unnaturally still, lekku hanging in a way that made them look dead.

“Not as far as I could tell, no. Is there a problem?” Padmé’s gut twisted.

“Not as such. We just need to make sure that it was only our alliance with the Hutts and those trade routes Dooku was after. One of the only safe hyperlanes to Kamino is along those hyperlanes and if Dooku were to have had access to them.”

“I see what you mean. Nothing they said had anything to do with Kamino or the men, but you should have a copy of the footage just to check.”

“Yes, we’ve looked over it. This is just a follow up on my part to make sure that we are safe here,” said Master Gallia.

Master Ti glanced at Master Gallia who took one last look at her datapad before she took a breath and sat up even straighter.

“Senator Amidala, your office is secure and this is a hard line on your end, correct?”

“Yes, we did a sweep just this morning. What is this about?” Padmé’s heart was speeding up and she felt like she was standing on a ledge.

“It is imperative that we be able to contact the source of this information, Senator. Whoever they are, they discovered a cache of data that even Master Tholme didn’t have access to. We haven’t gotten through all of it yet, and there is already an abundance of information about how deeply entrenched Ziro and Jabba’s operations were on Coruscant until Ziro was arrested. There is also evidence of Jabba’s collusion with Dooku which could substantiate reports we’ve been fielding from GAR intelligence. Having access to the beings who brought you this information could be vital to our ability to properly manage our operations in the Outer Rim. I realize that they most likely asked you to maintain their anonymity, or that you don’t know who they are. But they contacted you somehow, and we need to be able to speak with them directly. Especially if they have more of the kind of information they gave you.” Master Gallia’s eyes burned into Padmé’s. She looked apologetic, but Padmé could feel the determination underneath every single word.

There was a way around this. Somewhere.

“I’ll have to speak with them. I don’t know that the contact information they gave me is even still good after what happened with Ziro. But it’ll be up to them. I can’t make them talk to you if they don’t want to.”

“All we need is a chance.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

///

Plo turned the change in the 104th over in his mind as he waited to meet with the Chancellor. There was something different with the entirety of Canidae, that difference spreading through Canis as well. Lupus and Lycaon hadn’t been reached by whatever it was yet. But Plo had little doubt that they, too, would be changed. Sooner rather than later. There wasn’t any warning about it through the Force. In fact, the Force around Canidae and Canis felt Lighter than it had before. There was the standard Darkness that would always persist in such a place and situation, but the men themselves were Lighter.

And it had all started with Commander Wolffe’s head injury.

Plo was still trying to figure out when an injury that would require invasive surgery would’ve taken place during their time on Tatooine. There hadn’t been any evidence of Wolffe suffering any kind of neurological trauma; but then, Plo was very well aware of the fact that he was not Vokara Che.

He had also noticed the uptick in the use of the sterilization facilities in the medical bay of the Triumphant. It was an interesting puzzle. Plo wasn’t too concerned yet. Were there a serious problem, he had faith that both the Force and Commander Wolffe would let him know. As it stood, he’d found that it was best to trust that the men knew what they were doing.

Senator Amidala’s signature drawing closer was a pleasant surprise. If Plo was being honest, which he always endeavored to be, he had not been looking forward to having to speak with the Chancellor alone. The man could be incredibly persistent and Plo was not one for politicking, regardless of his position on the Council.

“Master Koon, what a pleasant surprise!” Senator Amidala stopped next to Plo’s seat, handmaidens on either side.

“Indeed, Senator Amidala. I hadn’t expected anyone else to be in this meeting.”

“Neither did I. How’ve you been?”The senator took the seat across from Plo.

“I’m well, thank you. It has been a relief to be back on Coruscant for a time. And yourself? I’ve heard there was an incident with a Hutt.” And Plo was still very curious as to how he hadn’t noticed anything amiss when he’d been dealing with Jabba and the Abiik-Kemirs.

“Oh I’m alright. Dormé did an excellent job and the Coruscant Guard came so quickly that I was never in any real danger.”

There was a spike of indignation in the Force and Plo stifled a laugh.

“I am glad they were there, then. I’ve found the Hutts to be quite ruthless and cunning when the situation calls for it.” The negotiations with Jabba had been almost as slow as the Senate in deadlock.

“Yes-“

“The Chancellor will see you now.”

A bit of a shuffle with Senator Amidala’s handmaidens later and both Plo and the Senator were seated in front of the Chancellor’s desk.

“Ah, Master Koon. Thank you so much for your time. I am sorry to take away from your short leave, but you had contact with a few people of interest during your most recent tour, and I confess I am quite curious about them.”

The Chancellor was behaving as usual, but Plo took note of the slight wrinkle of annoyance in the Force on the part of Senator Amidala. Interesting, and slightly concerning as well. He may have to ask her about that. He would also have to look into how, exactly, the Chancellor had managed to hear about a meeting that was meant to be completely off the record.

“It is no trouble, Chancellor; I am glad to be of service. Might I ask what interest they are to the Republic?”

“Oh, well the Abiik-Kemirs are at the center of a quite historic event in our history. And frankly, my interest is a bit personal as well. Naboo is still my home.”

“Of course.” Something in the Force rang false, but it wasn’t clear what it was coming from.

“I had also hoped to get both you and Senator Amidala’s opinions on the public perception of the GAR. Senator Amidala was at the head of the opposition to the ruling that passed in recently in regards to the clones. I wanted to hear how that affected operations within your unit, given how well known the 104th has become in such a short time.” His face was sympathetic, but there was a twinge of anger from the senator.

“I’ll answer whatever questions I can. However, I believe Master Gallia or Master Ti would be the best informed in regards to anything of that nature. Especially politically.” Adi and Shaak were not going to be pleased about that, regardless of how true it was.

“Of course, of course. But political answers will only tell me so much. I find it’s better to speak to the men in the trenches, so to speak. They are usually more informed about the day-to-day than the people involved in the politics, unfortunately.” Chancellor Palpatine smiled at the senator as he spoke.

“As far as my first question; I just wanted to know if they’ve recovered from their ordeal. Queen Jamilia and Senator Amidala have done an excellent job of ensuring that they are given the space they need.”

The Chancellor’s voice never changed, but there was no mistaking the slight bitterness from both him and Senator Amidala.

“They appear to have recovered quite well. It seems Naboo is a good place to heal.”

“Good, good. That’s all I wanted to know.”

Plo had a suspicion that that would not be the last time that they were brought up in this particular conversation.

///

“So there hasn’t been any decrease in efficiency?”

“Not that I noticed, no. It has been more difficult to operate in more civilian dense areas during aid missions and such. But the men themselves are professional.”

Padmé knew she wasn’t imagining the irritation in Master Koon’s voice.

“Well that is good news. Senator Amidala has been trying to find a way to reintroduce the topic to the Senate floor and it wouldn’t even have a ghost of a chance were the clones to have any sort of public issues.”

As if he wasn’t fully aware that what had happened on Christophsis would be a huge stumbling block.

“As far as I know, there won’t be any trouble from their side of matters.” Those words were pointed and from the look on Palpatine’s face, he knew it too.

“I would also like to know more about these mysterious beings who tried to help Master Jinn and Master Unduli capture this Ventress. There was very little about them in the reports from all sides.”

Padmé had resigned herself to just being a set piece. It was clear that Palpatine had asked her here to mine for information and prove that he had more than one way to get what he wanted to know.

“They demanded as much anonymity as possible in their negotiations for both themselves and the Abiik-Kemirs. The Republic has somewhat of an unstable reputation in the Outer Rim and if the word were to get out that they assisted us, it could be bad for all of their livelihoods.”

“Indeed. Well, we shall have to try and repair our image there when this war is over. I would like to be able to acknowledge such risky service publicly.”

“If I see them again, I am willing to pass on your thanks if you would like.”

“Please do. And let them know that I’m willing to compensate them as well. Or rather, that the GAR is willing to compensate them. They should at the very least be paid.”

Padmé’s fingers twitched in her lap. She clenched her hands tight, nails cutting into her palms, before she deliberately spread them out over her knees, making sure to keep the motion hidden.

“I will make sure to pass that on.” The irritation was back in Master Koon’s voice.

“Well, I’m afraid that I have another meeting to get to. Thank you both so much for your time.”

Padmé smiled, saying the standard goodbyes and walked out, blood boiling.

She and her handmaidens were halfway down the hall to the turbolift when Master Koon called after her.

“Senator Amidala.” He caught up to her paused little group in seconds. “I must apologize for the waste of your time.”

“It’s no problem, Master Koon. There were a lot of questions you needed to answer. I hadn’t expected to get very far in this meeting anyway.”

“Still, I apologize for taking up so much of the time in that meeting. I know how busy you senators are these days.” He walked along beside them, seeming to ignore Eirtaé angling herself between him and Padmé.

She waited until they were all on the lift to speak.

“If you have an extra few minutes, I would like to talk to you about the Abiik-Kemirs. I haven’t seen them since I came back to Coruscant.”

“Of course.”

“Come with me, then.” Padmé had about half an hour before her next meeting. She really should’ve eaten.

As soon as they were back in her office and the jammers were on, she started in.

“Did you force or coerce them into helping you? And I do mean in any way, Master Koon.”

Ejasa hadn’t sounded or seemed like she was upset. But that meant about as much as it did when Master Qui-Gon said he was fine.

“No. Them coming to assist personally was a surprise. I would’ve settled for just guidance and some answers to a few questions that are lingering in the Order.” He didn’t seem surprised that she’d known it was them, and that made her suspicious.

“Right.” Padmé sat down and watched him for a few seconds.

“How are the men in the 104th? Don’t give me the diplomatic answer, I need to know how they feel about what’s happened. How the ruling affects their lives and their morale.”

Master Koon paused and the air in the room shifted, something heavy and somber curling his shoulders and weighing on hers.

“They haven’t said anything about it. I don’t think that it surprised them at all. In fact, I think that it would have been more of a surprise to them had the Senate ruled in their favor. They are angry. And they are very adept at concealing that they are angry. They are, as I said, professional to the last man. But this is a betrayal, even if it was an expected one.”

Padmé wanted to ask Commander Fox, ask any one of the Guard about how they felt. The 104th was high profile and didn’t interact with civilians too frequently. Or, at least, they hadn’t for the most part. The Guard hadn’t seemed like they’d even noticed what’d happened in the Senate. Much as it made the knife in her gut twist, it was good to hear that the men were angry. Apparently, Commander Fox had trained his men well.

///

All of the Nova Battalion veterans were clear of chips. The weight of that off of Cody’s shoulders was cosmic. Granted, he had another fifteen battalions to get through, but they had a proven system in place. All they had to do was implement the system for the next group and the next and it would all work. And he was very proud of the fact that they’d achieved this without General Jinn noticing while loading new shinies, without the Kaminoans seeing any of it either. Kix had worked out well. If he hadn’t had to keep all of this as contained as he did, Cody would’ve given him a commendation for his work. Him, Coric, and Stitch.

Cody felt the scar above his right ear. Ever since that damned thing had come out, the world was clearer. He was so much less tired; he could think straighter.

He still hadn’t figured out a way to de-chip any of the cadets without someone noticing. As good as General Ti was, she wasn’t all powerful. Besides, Cody wasn’t sure she knew about the chips anyway. She may have been investigating, but that didn’t mean she knew anything. Cody had a hard time believing that even the most removed jetii could be cold enough to train someone as a padawan while leaving something like the chips in their head.

They were scheduled to make the trip to Corellia the next day for repairs. Everything was all lined up, they just had to get there. Cody was ready to leave. Kamino may technically be home, but knowing about the chips made every single second there was almost as paranoid as being in the Jedi Temple had been.

Commander Tano had also taken to following him around, which was making his work harder than it needed to be. She’d gotten bored within the first few days, apparently, and had started following Cody after the debrief on Christohpsis and Slick with General Ti.

He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Again.

He turned around just in time to see a flash of blue and white duck into an air vent. How did she even manage to hide when she was literally orange, white, and blue?

He kept walking. He was impressed that he didn’t hear her come out of the vent. Or crawl in it if she hadn’t come out. Maybe he should have some of the shinies try and shadow her as an exercise. Might teach them how to actually sneak around.

He felt something behind him again.

He waited for a breath before turning as fast as he could. There was Commander Tano, halfway to a tiny little inlet in the hallway. She was paused, eyes wide and a sheepish grin on her face. Cody really, really wanted to laugh. She looked exactly like Bins used to when he got caught in Wolffe’s things.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Her eyes widened and she drew into the same resting pose Cody had seen every Jedi take.

“No, no. I was just taking a walk, you know? Getting to know the ship again. I spent most of the ride here napping and Master Qui-Gon and Master Shaak have been keeping me really busy, so.”

“Alright, sir. If you’re sure.”

“Positive. Totally sure.”

Cody nodded before he turned back to keep going to his quarters.

There were footsteps behind him.

“Sir?”

“I was just wondering if you knew where Waxer and Boil were.” That face. He didn’t trust that face. Or that way too innocent voice.

“If they’re not on duty then they’re most likely in the mess, the gym, or with their squad.”

“Right. Thanks, Cody.”

“Of course, sir.”

Forget Rex’s feelings, Cody had plenty of bad feelings of his own.

He started for his quarters again, hopefully without any Togrutan shadows this time. Maybe he shouldn’t have the shinies try to shadow her. Best they learned some respect before they learned any of that poodoo.

Now having them try to shadow General Jinn, that was an idea. The man was a ghost when he wanted to be.

There were more footsteps behind him.

He turned and there was a very innocent looking Boil.

Hells.

“What do you need, Boil?”

“Nothing, sir. I was just on my way to the mess.”

“The mess is the other way, Boil.”

“I’m taking the scenic route, sir.”

“Right.” Cody turned and started walking again.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being herded into something.

As soon as he got to an empty room that was still too far from his quarters, the hair on his neck stood up again. Right on schedule, there was Commander Tano looking for all the galaxy like she hadn’t been stalking him around the ship for at least the last ten minutes.

And Waxer was right in front of him.

“Boil, get out here.”

The vod appeared from behind the same corner as Commander Tano.

“What can I do for the three of you?” It looked like he wasn’t going to get to go through those comm messages after all.

“Well. I was following you around Tipoca. Don’t be mad, but I saw you talking to that cadet and I saw the kyber crystal. And I was wondering where he got the crystal exactly. Waxer and Boil just agreed to help me corner you.”

It was amazing. Cody was completely alive and standing up without a pulse.

“I think it was a keepsake or something. The current cadets are being trained by outsiders; and if you do really, really well on a difficult assessment, they might give you something as a reminder or encouragement to keep up the good work.”

“You guys are allowed to do that? He won’t get in trouble for it or anything?” She sounded almost…concerned for Fives. She hadn’t even met the vod. She didn’t even know his _name_.

“Not as long as he doesn’t go around waving the thing in people’s faces, no. You’re not going to take it?” Cody could feel himself standing on the bare edge. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to slip a lie past a jetii, even a shiny one like the Commander. Especially one that transparent. There was no chance she’d actually bought that.

“No, of course not! We won’t get him in trouble, right guys?” She turned on Waxer and Boil who nodded like bobbleheads with a lot of “Yes, sir”s.

“Good. Is there anything else?” Cody really hoped not.

“No, no. That was everything. Thanks, Cody. Sorry for messing with you.” She was off with a bright smile that had too much fang in it for comfort, Waxer and Boil getting dragged alongside.

///

Tatooine was still way too hot. The suns were setting and Rex still felt like he was getting roasted alive. It was too noisy to meditate on the ship. Ben and Silas were leaking emotions and unfamiliar trace signatures from visitors Rex and Silas had missed interrupted the natural flow of the Force on board. It was still normal outside, though. Well, as normal as reaching out for the Force ever was. The Force felt like it stripped everyone and everything down to the barest bones of who they were on Tatooine; and Rex could feel pieces of himself eroding away.

He’d been reaching for something ever since they’d gotten back on board the Triumphant. But every time he thought he was close, it would slip through his fingers and he’d have to start all over again.

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked out across the sand. They’d parked in the middle of nowhere. Rex honestly couldn’t see a difference in the landscape. The dunes rose and fell as far as the eye could see, even with macros. There were natural sandstone formations that were constantly being recarved by the sandstorms that battered everything like the Force. He knew there were deep pits and sinkholes and sarlacc pits out there, but he couldn’t see any sign of them. Something with way too many legs and spikes skittered across the sand nearby.

Ejasa walked outside with two mugs full of some kind of tea that smelled like it had a splash of tihaar in it. She passed one to him and sat down, taking a drink of her own. Her signature wasn’t getting worn away by the Force at all. But then, she’d probably been through this process already.

The tea was a fruity one of some kind, the sharp taste of the tihaar cutting through it. It burned pleasantly going down and distant memories from training swirled in his head with the Force in the same kind of currents as the wind.

“The first fight is always the worst.” Ejasa sounded older than she ever had before.

“That wasn’t my first fight.” Rex took another sip of tea and let himself slide further down the side of the ship. His entire body felt as heavy as durasteel again.

“That was your first fight with someone else Force Sensitive. It’s different. Especially one-on-one.” There was warmth over the bond as she spoke, something Rex couldn’t quite put a name to.

“It was different, but that wasn’t…she’s not the problem here. Whatever emotions she pushed, I sorted them out. I’m more worried about what's being done to my brothers than anything she could’ve done to me.” The words felt like another piece of him was being worn away as he said them.

“That’s the the other part of this. Before, you wouldn’t have been aware of the Force and the beings around you while you were fighting. Now, you’re more keyed into it, so it has a stronger effect on you. You’re aware of all the fallout in the Force. All the things that live in it and scar it and change the flow of it. You can feel what's being done, what's already been done.”

The wind blew and Rex saw a sandbat fly out of one of the rock piles, riding what was left of the thermals.

“What are you looking for?” Ejasa shifted, patience steeping in the bond.

Rex scanned the horizon again, the sky turning a darker shade of indigo-violet behind the the still-climbing sandbat.

“Something to do with the vision from the crystal.” Something clicked as he spoke and he rewarded himself with a sip of tea.

Ejasa hummed as she drank.

“Visions are the most difficult of everything. There are so many different ways to interpret them that you can never be sure which one is the right one. The most dangerous part is that you can get sucked into them, into one interpretation that might not even be the right one. They can destroy your life if you’re not careful with them. Jedi, Sith, Dathomiri; it doesn’t matter which belief or creed you follow. All of them may have different ways of reading visions, but not enough caution in taking them into yourself too deeply. It’s wise to heed a vision and to take it into account. But you cannot and must not let it rule you.” There was something under her voice and in the bond that bled hard won experience.

Rex let himself think. Slowing down had become more difficult as he got deeper into everything the Force had to offer. The challenge of learning fast enough to be able to help his brothers, but balancing enough that he didn’t burn himself up trying to absorb everything at once.

“How do you figure out how much weight to give it?” The vision felt like a fever dream; and the idea of putting any water in that without something more to back it up sounded like a very stupid thing to do.

“That all comes down to personal preference. I know that’s not a very helpful answer. But there are a lot of things when it comes to the Force that reduce to how you view the Force, your place in it, and if you think it owes you something. The Force is a powerful ally, and I don’t believe that it owes me anything. It isn’t my place to command it or impose my own will over it. It is literally a force, an energy that encompasses the entire galaxy. I have my own will, and I choose to use that to listen to the Force and follow it. I trust that I will wind up where and when I need to be. I work to achieve what I want to achieve. But I make sure to take the Force’s guidance into account whenever I make an important decision.

“The best way that I’ve found. The rule that I follow, is that you give the most weight to the things that you feel the most emphasis on. If that vision feels like it’s very important, like it holds an answer that you really need so that you know what to do next, then you give it that importance and that credence. If it feels more like a potentiality, something to take into account but not something life defining or altering, then you listen; but you don’t make it the be all end all of whatever decision you make.

“In my experience, most visions and advice from the Force will be in the second category.”

The second sun set and Rex gripped the hilt of his lightsaber.

“I need to be able to fight with a 'saber, with the Force. The right way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetii-Jedi  
> Haran-Hell  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Aliit-Family
> 
> I’m changing the sandbats a little. They’re still venomous, but they’re smaller. Nothing can ever be easy for Cody. Plo Koon doesn’t like Palpatine and Padmé has Opinions. The 104th deserved company names! Even if they're not creative!


	15. Just Listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training is had and the Force speaks

When Buir had said to go out on a supply run, Anakin hadn’t expected that to be for marbles to throw at Rex. Asking to be trained to fight using the Force around Ben was like asking to be jumpscared at completely random intervals constantly until you managed to catch him before he could catch you. Buir had taught Anakin the main self-defense style she’d learned at the same time he’d been learning from Ben, which mostly consisted of good blocking and knowing where the important nerve clusters and endings were in most species. The Force was very helpful for that. It was also very helpful for redirecting marbles. If you knew how to do that.

Rex didn’t.

This seemed a little excessive, maybe. But it wasn’t like they had a training remote. They couldn’t afford to keep building those things, and there were benefits to living in close quarters with two other Force Sensitives. Well, three now. One of those was that they could use the Force to throw scrap, and it worked even better than a training remote. Marbles really were so useful.

“The point is to develop your spacial awareness within the Force in a combat situation.” Ben was levitating a cloud amount of marbles.

Rex eyed the floating swarm before looking back at Ben with the most skeptical eyebrow Silas had ever seen.

“And the best way to do that is by pelting me with marbles?” His voice was even more skeptical than his face.

Anakin really couldn’t resist. “It’s better than if he went for paintballs. Trust me.”

“How are these better?” Rex asked, dodging a stray one that flew for his temple.

“Because if it was paintballs he wouldn’t care how hard he was throwing them. With marbles there’s a limit.” Anakin swatted one of the marbles away from his face with a small _push_.

“Right.”

He wasn’t struggling with the same thing Anakin remembered struggling with. The learning curve of sustaining his shields while still using the Force to sense things, let alone summoning or anything like that. But Rex stretched out around his shields like it was easy. With the way the Force was moving around him, he should’ve been able to know exactly where the next hit was coming from.

Great. Rex really wasn’t going to like Ben’s solution to that problem.

Anakin let Ben know what he saw anyway, a twinge of empathy in his gut.

Maybe it wouldn’t take as long for Rex.

“Alright.” Ben put the marbles back into the box.

“We’re stopping already?” Rex was suspicious, the feeling crawling slowly across the bond like vines.

“Not exactly. I want you to close your eyes.”

Rex gave Ben another suspiciouslook. “You’re not going to try and pelt me with those things if I do that?”

“I promise I won’t throw marbles at you.”

That was news to Anakin.

Rex still looked skeptical, but he closed his eyes anyway, entire body stiffer than a protocol droid’s.

“Good. Now, what do you sense around you? Ignore Silas and myself for the moment. Don’t try to rely on your memories or your other senses. Use your feelings.”

Rex let out an almost inaudible sigh before he cocked his head.

The room was weirdly silent, the background hum of the ship dimming into nothing. The only sound was the three of them breathing. There was a tiny wave in the Force, a bit of turbulence tinged with garnet that was so small Anakin almost didn’t see it.

“Good. You have the room in your mind’s eye?”

Rex nodded, shoulders relaxing as his suspicion faded away into the Force.

“Alright. I’m going to pick something up. What I want you to do is catch it when I drop it.”

Rex nodded again, more garnet coming out in the Force around him in liquid watercolor swirls.

Anakin winced when he saw the box Ben picked. It was loaded with a ton of spare parts, bits, and bobs. Which would have been fine if they weren’t all metal. And if some of them weren’t made out of a super-dense material that Anakin had been experimenting with adding to the hilts of some of their vibroblades. Ben barely twitched picking it up and the Force glowed brightly underneath it, responding instantly. At least there wasn’t anything too delicate in there.

The box hovered for a moment, Rex facing it the second it’d lifted off the ground. Then, without any warning, it dropped at near supersonic speed towards the ground. As it fell, it was almost like time was slowing down and Anakin braced for the crash and mess when it hit.

But at the last possible second, a multi-colored cloud gathered under the box and held it barely a centimeter away from the ground. Anakin could see the impact being spread through the Force, the rest of the colors and textures bending and compressing towards the box and the wave of the impact riding across the room.

Rex was obviously straining after he’d realized exactly how heavy the thing was. He was reaching for the box, hand trembling.

Anakin saw Ben’s shock over the bond, a bright, pleased thing that warmed the room past his shields.

“Nicely done! You can put it down now, slow as you can. That’s it.”

As soon as the box was back on solid ground Rex gasped for air, bending over with his eyes wide open again. The spell that had fallen over the room was completely shattered and the background hum and white noise of the ship felt like it was way too loud all of the sudden.

Ben leaned against the wall again. “Now, when we can get you to do that consistently, I think you’ll be ready for just about anything I could throw at you in here.”

Rex took a second off from hyperventilating to glare at Ben before hitting him with one of the marbles near his feet.

///

Coruscant was always…interesting. They weren’t staying there long, maybe even leaving as soon as the next morning. But what was getting under Wolffe’s skin was how uncomfortable General Koon had been the day before. He’d had a meeting with the Chancellor and had come back with something in his mask about what the Alor had had to say about whatever it was they’d met about.

Wolffe hadn’t really had the chance to do much outside of stretch his legs off of the Triumphant once. There was too much flimsiwork to make disappear in the wake of trying to clear the 104th of the chips. But he’d had the chance to notice was how much more tired he felt on Coruscant. It was like something was just in the corner of his eye and he couldn’t get a good look at whatever it was. Having something to focus on outside of paperwork and that paranoid twinge in the back of his head was actually a good thing.

Having Senator Amidala randomly drop by was a bit more stressful, but at least it wasn’t General Yoda or General Windu. General Koon may leave Wolffe and rest of the 104th room and privacy as much as he could, but those two were invasive as all haran when they wanted to be. Wolffe had heard more than enough stories about that from Ponds to last a lifetime.

“Hello, Commander. I had a really quick meeting set up with Master Koon.”

“He should be in there, ma’am.” What was this about?

General Koon opened the door and brought her into the room, the scent of tea and the general’s air wafting out before the door closed. This hadn’t been on the general’s schedule. Just like the meeting with this same senator hadn’t been on the schedule yesterday. And come to think of it, hadn’t he heard about a meeting with General Gallia from one of Fox’s men?

That feeling of something in the corner of his eye was back. Wolffe could almost feel something breathing down his neck. It wasn’t about this. This. Well, outside of his brothers and the general’s wellbeing, it wasn’t any of Wolffe’s business who the jetiise were friends with. But this was tied to it somehow. Wolffe could feel it.

There was one way to find out.

Wolffe picked up his comm.

“Come on, utreekov. Pick up.”

“What do you want, Wolffe? I’m busy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Listen. What’ve you heard around the ruling? With the opposition?”

There was a pause. Fox sighed into the comm after a second and Wolffe heard a door close and the static fuzz of a bug scan.

“What does that have to do with you?”

“If I’m wrong, nothing.”

“And if you’re right? I’m not just a rumor dispensary, you know. I’m not supposed to tell you rusur anything anyway.” Flimsi shifted in the background of the comm.

“You’re not supposed to tell anyone anything.” Wolffe peered around the hallway.

“So why even ask me?”

“Because nothing happens in that building without you hearing about it. So if there’s something going on.” Wolffe let Fox fill in the rest for himself.

“If there’s something going on, then I’m definitely not supposed to tell you.”

“And then we’ll all be blind sided when it winds out coming out anyway.” Whatever was going on, it was something major if Fox was being this much of a pain in the shebs about it.

Fox sighed.

“Alright. Fine. There was something weird about the opposition. Nothing happened to them, but there was. It was like people were angrier. We get a lot of threats anyway, you know? Standard stuff. But it wasn’t like normal. It wasn’t even directed at us, either. And that’s the weird part. I was expecting for the attacks, the normal threats to get directed more towards us while this was being voted on. Outside, that was what happened. But inside, I don’t know. It was like they were being pushed somehow. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought that a few of them were plants. I mean, maybe they were. But our men are better than that. It was really subtle. But I know what it’s supposed to look like. And that wasn’t it.”

There it was.

“Was there anyone who was there for all of it?”

“You think I didn’t check for that? That was the first thing I did, darjetii are a concern here. But there wasn’t anyone who was a present for every single thing. Nobody who was registered in the system, anyway.” Fox'd never sounded that frustrated before.

“Right-“

“And I’ll tell you what else. There’s something with the Jedi as well. After Cody and all of his took over the 212th, we got put in. They’re even more fractured than Cody said. They put out a good public face, but they’re not working together. You’ll get two completely different statements from two different beings in the span of an hour. I have no idea what’s going on in there; and if you ask me, they don’t either.”

Something cold reached into Wolffe’s chest. “Really?”

“It’s bad, vod. You’ll never hear it off Coruscant. But…”

“Osik.”

“Yeah, pretty much. They’re coordinated about strategy and almost nothing else. It’s not like what they taught us about the Jedi. I don’t know what it’s like. But it’s kept about as deep under wraps as they can get it.”

Wolffe glanced at the door and up the hallway.

“Can you keep any eye out for something?”

Fox sighed again, more flimsi rustling in the background. “What?”

“Look for any Jedi or senators who seem more difficult than others. The ones that make your men uncomfortable. The ones they draw straws for. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. That’s easy enough, but you owe me some good Rylothi yurp. And I mean the illegal top-shelf stuff, none of that rot-gut poodoo some of yours pretend they don’t sell. And I’m charging double too.”

“Fine. Drink me broke, sure.”

“You earned it, Wolffe’ika. Asking me about that osik. What’d you expect?”

“Yeah, fine. I’ll comm you the next time we’re on Coruscant.”

“You’d better.”

Wolffe pulled up some of the never-ending work on his datapad seconds before the general’s door opened again. The smell of tea was much stronger this time and Senator Amidala had a data stick in her hand.

“Thank you so much, Master Koon. I really appreciate it.” She gave Wolffe a polite smile and nod before she walked away.

General Koon stood in the doorway for a second and Wolffe waited.

“You don’t have to stand guard on your day off, Commander.” His voice was warm.

“All of the others have their days off. This is fine, sir. Guarding isn’t hard.”

“I’m sure.” There was something bitter under that.

“Is there something I can do for you, sir?”

“Get some rest before we ship out again, Wolffe. We need to be as sharp as we can. I have a feeling we are going to need our strength.”

Why’d he have to go and say it out loud like that?

///

Fives could feel the Force flowing in and around him as he and the rest of Domino waited for the test to start. It was a practice, but he could feel the adrenaline rush and the anxious excitement from the others already. General Ti was paying attention, but she was far away from all of this. The lessons always felt far away from this.

The alarm went off and they charged forward in formation behind 782, letting him clear a safe path for them. Fives felt the warning and ducked, pulling Bait down next to him a split second before a blast went over their heads close enough to feel the heat. Bait nodded a thanks before they kept moving, eyes scanning for the commandos.

They reached the first cover way faster and easier than they had even a week ago.

“We’ve got at least five commandos at ten!” Bait reported, ducking back under cover.

“Right. Fives, Echo, and 4040, you three take them down, Bait, get ready to charge again.” 782 ordered.

Fives pulled on the Force, feeling the rush of it through him, steadying his hands, sharpening his eyes.

He knew before the shot even hit that the droid was down and he saw Echo and 4040’s go down as he shifted for the next. He nailed the weak point and Echo took down the last one.

782 laid down cover as they ran for the next point.

“Your orders are to retrieve the beacon at the top of the tower.” The voice came over the speaker and Fives heard Echo twitch to repeat them before 782 gave him a look.

“Right. 4040, Bait, deal with those turrets. Fives, Echo, we’re dealing with the ones in our way.”

Fives got right to the edge, right where he felt the prick of danger at the base of his skull and followed the Force. He saw them falling under 782’s heavy fire and Echo’s precise shots. The explosions from 4040 and Bait taking down the turrets didn’t even register.

“Move! Get to the tower, now!” Ordered 782.

Fives kept a finger on all of them as they charged for the tower, firing on another tinny that popped up before it had a chance to fire a shot. He winced. Bric and El-Les were going to notice that. Everything else wasn’t all that special or noticeable. But that was.

Too late now.

“Grappling hooks. Fives, Bait, you climb. 4040, Echo, stay here with me. We climb last.”

Fives kept close to Bait as they climbed. The Force was running through him, strengthening every muscle. He felt like he could do this all day.

They hit the top of the tower in what felt like record time and he covered Echo, 782, and 4040 as Bait ran for the beacon.

The lights went back to normal as soon as 4040’s feet hit the deck and they all crowded together, Echo and Bait crowding close to Fives.

“Do you think we did it? That was good right? We were good. I’ve got a good feeling about that, guys.” Bait said, eyes bright behind his shield.

“That was good. That was record time for us.” 782 was definite, confidence coming off him in waves in the Force.

Fives breathed in deep, letting himself soak in it all before he let it let it all go. The strength faded with every breath out, but not the awareness. It was so much better than he’d been before. He was still steady too. No shakes, no tremors, nothing from the fade away.

“Well done, Domino Squad. That was a pass.” Fives knew he wasn’t imagining the pride in General Ti’s voice and his chest burned warm, the bond doing the same in the back of his head. His squadmates glowed in the Force too, their warmth sinking into Fives’ bones.

“Cleanup in the Citadel room please, 99,” said General Ti as they went down the side of the tower.

“Good job, boys.” 99 was one of the only beings that Fives could identify by feel outside of General Ti and the rest of Domino, and the genuine happiness was as warm as General Ti’s pride in his chest.

“Thanks, 99. Sorry about the mess.” 782’s voice was lighter than ever. Worry about detection or no, they’d just done something big.

“It’s no trouble. You did good.”

782 trailed behind to talk with 99 a bit while 4040 and Bait pulled ahead.

“What do you think?” Echo sounded almost nervous.

Fives leaned into his brother.

“I’ve got a really good feeling about this, vod. Just watch.”

///

The com woke Anakin up, flailing and falling into a heap on the floor of his room. The sheet was tangled around his legs and he looked blearily up at the display, rolling his shoulder. He squinted at the ID for a second before he shot off the floor, wrapping the sheet around him and grabbing his mask as he flew towards the chair.

“Silas, hi! I was just about to leave a message.” Padmé looked him over before she winced. “I’m sorry, did I wake you up? I didn’t even think about the time difference.”

“It’s fine. I should’ve been awake already anyway.” And why he’d slept through that alarm was a mystery for a time after caf.

“I hate to ask this, but I’ve got someone asking for your comm information. It’s the Jedi I told Ejasa about, Master Adi Gallia. She’s been asking a lot of questions about you guys and how you got your intel. The last time I talked to Ejasa, she said you knew the being who got that information for you better than she did and that it’d be faster to ask you when you got back.”

“Right, yeah. Um, what is it she’s asking for exactly?” Anakin ran a hand through his hair and tried to at least act like he hadn’t just been in a dead sleep.

“Well, I think ideally she wants access to whoever it is. Directly. But she wants to talk to you guys too. I said that it was up to you when she asked.”

Right. Nu draar. Kit was going to be pissed enough that that’d gotten into jetii hands as it was.

“Honestly, any contact with Jedi would have to be up to Ben. Sorry to run you in circles, but I’m more in the action side than the diplomacy side.”

“Right; I’m guessing he’s asleep.”

Actually, he wasn’t, and the Force was smooth and calm around him as he meditated.

“Yeah, sorry. He’ll probably be up later, though. I don’t know what time that would be for you.”

“Way too late. I should really be asleep already, but this has been bugging me. There was also something else.”

The Force poked Anakin hard and he suddenly felt like he’d had caf injected right into his veins.

“What’s up?”

Padmé hesitated, looking at something out of view of the comm before she looked back at him.

“It’s probably nothing, but I thought you guys should know. The Chancellor has been asking after you ever since Naboo. Jamilia and I have been keeping our mouths shut. But a new queen is being coronated this month and he’s moved on to asking the Jedi about you. I have no idea how he heard about Master Koon’s run in with you so soon. Those files never reach any of us that fast, and the only reason I knew was because of Ejasa. I don’t know what he wants with you all, but he’s digging.”

A pit opened in Anakin’s stomach and his vision flashed behind his eyes.

The buildings were on fire in the sun.

“Okay, thanks for letting me know. I’ll pass it on.”

“Of course. Stay safe, ret’uryce mhi.”

“Ret’urcye mhi.” He wasn’t even paying attention to the words.

Anakin sat on the floor again, trying to pull as much of the vision to the front of his mind as he could. He took his mask back off as he settled into a meditative pose.

The Force answered immediately, flooding him and waking him up the rest of the way.

Wind was on his face and he was drifting.

The Dark curled over his skin snakes made of ice that sank into him and coiled around his chest. The Darkness in the figure in the Senate was different. Normal Darkness, the non-poisonous variety, was so cold it burned and was capable of cutting through the heat of the Light. This was just acid. It was pure, concentrated acid that moved like oil and ate through everything in its path. Whoever this being was, they’d been submerged in it so long that they looked like a pool of it in the Force, dead-blood brown, black, ruby red, necrotic gray and green. All of it flowed in a miasma in them and swallowed anything too close whole.

The room was strangely quiet and still.

Anakin focused on the sensation of Darkness. There was something familiar about it. Something he’d felt before. Something he’d been around. It wasn’t Tyranus or Dooku or whatever the kriff name the demagolka went by now. He wasn’t strong enough, in deep enough to be this venomous. Where had he felt that-

He cut off in a sharp shock.

The chips. He’d felt that in the chip they’d pulled out of Rex’s head. It hadn’t been nearly as strong, but it had been there. He could feel it. That same Darkness had been there.

He was halfway out of his door before he even realized where he was going, clothes on that he couldn’t remember putting on in the rush.

Rex was mediating in the training room, but he came out of it as soon as Anakin was in the room.

“What is it?”

Anakin didn’t even want to know how badly he’d let all of that slip over the bonds.

“Look, look. I can’t-I have to show you.” He couldn’t even get the words out, damnit.

Anakin pushed the epiphany that was still hammering its way around his skull towards Rex and let him look at it. He could see the moment Rex figured it out, the sharp bite of anger ripping its way up the bond in a shock of bright blood red.

“You’re sure?” His voice was flat, the rage contained behind his shields and in the bonds.

“Positive. I’ve never felt anything else like that.”

“I have to let Cody know.” Rex was off without another word, fingers twitching where he usually had a blaster.

Anakin sat back on the floor, trying to focus on the feeling of the metal under him.

///

Fives was awake. He didn’t know what had pushed him, but he could feel something. Something important was happening. He knew it. He checked the time and swore under his breath. He had to meet General Ti before their classes. If he ran, he might make it on time.

By the time he reached the room, he was breathing heavily. He’d almost gotten caught on they way up. But he steeled himself, forcing himself to breath slow and look collected before he went into the general’s office. She was staring out the window at the storm. The sky was still dark, clouds lighting up with lightning strikes.

“Have a seat, Fives.” General Ti walked over to her seat and poured him a cup of tea.

Fives took a sip, not really sure what kind it was. It tasted expensive.

“There was a disturbance of some kind. Did you feel it?” She was doing the thing where she looked into Fives’ soul again.

“Was that what that was? It felt like it was important somehow.”

“It was. I’ve no idea what it was about, but it was definitely important. And I have a feeling that it’s relevant to us somehow.” She took a drink, tiny smile at the taste flickering so fast Fives almost missed it.

“How do you know?” Even as he asked, it sounded true.

“It’s just a feeling. A sort of certainty in the Force. Like when you know where you’re going to land or that a shot is going to connect. It’s the same feeling.”

Fives nodded and looked out the window. There was some sort of tension that he couldn’t quite figure out in the room. General Ti felt like she was thinking about something in the Force. Something other than whatever the disturbance was.

She sighed a little before she put her teacup down.

“I wasn’t expecting for this to have to happen this early. Ideally, I’d be able to train you for a little longer before we began this part of the process. But the schedule has moved up. With your squad’s test scores, you’ll be some of the first deployed out of this batch of troopers. And there’s nothing I can do without the Council or the Senate’s input to stop it or slow it down.” The guilt and sadness hit Fives in the gut. General Ti’ face was as calm as ever, but he could feel the deep gutting sensation of her guilt.

“That’s not your fault, general. It was going to happen eventually.” The sadness got deeper at that, but it didn’t make it any less true.

“Yes. But while we still have time, I believe you’re ready to begin this part of your training.” She shook it off, releasing it all into the Force before she pulled a box out of one of her desk drawers. “It’s time for you to build you lightsaber. Physically, you’ve been ready for a long time. But I wanted to try and catch you up to where you needed to be in the Force. You’re ready now, even if I would have liked to give you more time to be more rooted in it.”

She pushed the box towards Fives who opened it with shock-numb fingers. The Force inside felt almost thick with other beings’ presences. He could sense General Ti in the mix, but the rest were a collection of strangers who were so blended together Fives couldn’t really tell them apart. There was a book, one made of real paper, with diagrams and explanations and all the technical parts of building a lightsaber. There was another, real paper again, that was all about the process in the Force that felt like a bowl of Light signatures in Fives’ hands. The rest of the stuff in the box was just parts.

“I pulled together as many different kinds of parts as I could get out here. I only have a few of the specialized parts, but there are a lot of options for the casing and other parts like that. As far as emitters and focusers go, I have one or two different types for those.”

Fives pulled the kyber crystal out of his pocket, Cody’s stories about Rex’s, General Jinn’s, and Commander Tano’s lightsabers in his ears. The Force felt like something huge was settling into place on this. Like this was something that was supposed to happen.

“Thank you, General Ti.”

He ran his fingers over the paper, the smell of it mixing with the scent of tea and metal.

///

Ahsoka knew the air vents of the Negotiator better than she’d ever wanted to know the air vents on any ship. At this point, she could probably get through the whole ship without ever having to be in the hallways once. She was sitting above the mess, listening to the clones talk and drifting in and out of a light meditative trance in the Living Force. She could feel Master Qui-Gon finally taking a nap in the back of her head and she laughed. Kix finally got to him.

The new troopers were still looking around wide eyed and they’d clustered together at their own tables in their own space. They looked at the veterans with a sort of awe that reflected into the Force around them.

Ahsoka shivered. Space was still cold. She didn’t know how she managed to forget that every single time. But there was something about long periods in hyperspace that really made the chill seep into her soul. She sighed and pulled a piece of jerky Master Shaak had given her out of her pocket.

Someone laughed right under the grate she was laying above and Ahsoka jumped, just managing to muffle the noise. She looked down a caught sight of Bins pulling something out of his pocket, a huge smile on his face. Stacks was leaning against the wall, tattoo wrinkling with his eyes as he smiled and Boil was saying something, Waxer standing next to him with an empty tray.

She really missed Barriss.

It’d been so nice to have another padawan around.

Something went up her spine and she looked down. Stacks was looking up at the grate curiously. Ahsoka scrambled back from it as quietly as she could and stretched out with the Force again. Nobody saw anything. Or at least, she didn’t think they’d seen anything. She should be leaving anyway.

She stuck the rest of her jerky in her mouth and crawled back the way she came towards the ships databanks. As soon as she was far enough away from the mess she dropped out of the vent, landing silently.

Ahsoka sighed, then straightened up. She had stuff to do. She was going to go meditate. Then she was going to go work on her katas. Then she was going to see if she could comm Barriss. And if she had time left, maybe she could watch that episode of Singing With Stars she’d missed. That essay could wait until they got back to Coruscant anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Buir-Parent  
> Alor-Chancellor  
> Haran-Hell  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Utreekov-Idiot (literally: emptyhead)  
> Rusur-Land, ships, or troops (In this context, it’s non-Guard troops)  
> Shebs-Backside  
> Osik-Shit  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Nu draar- Very emphatic way of saying no way, not in a million years  
> Ret’urcye mhi-Goodbye (literally, maybe we’ll meet again)  
> Demagolka-A real life monster, someone who commits atrocities
> 
> Force training takes many forms. Some are more conventional than others.


	16. Pass/Fail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontations and tests

It was sweltering, even inside. Silas and Ejasa didn’t even seem to notice the heat, but it felt like Ben was almost as close to melting as Rex was. All four of them were spread out around the room. The little cantina was a pop-up mercenary-bounty hunter-hired gun thing of some sort and the wide berth they were giving Ben was telling Rex everything he needed to know.

What he noticed from sitting in a corner with a cup of rotgut was how much gravity Ejasa carried. She went where she wanted, sat where she wanted, talked to who she wanted. She wasn’t physically imposing, didn’t push anyone, didn’t get in anyone’s space. Nobody tried anything with her, and that was the weirdest part of the whole thing.

Silas didn’t command the same fear or respect as Ben and Ejasa. Instead, he just sort of did what he wanted and let the earlier brawl talk for him. He lived and breathed the casual violence in the air of the pop-up cantina. That in turn kept most of the others off of his back and let him work the other part of the room that Ejasa couldn’t get to.

Ben pushed them towards Ejasa and Silas, then let the two of them break up the competition until they had their pick of the work and intel.

Rex took another drink and enjoyed the acid trying to eat his throat. He was practically invisible as a newcomer. Nobody was really paying attention to him. He wasn’t wearing any armor (people knew what clone armor looked like now, especially beings like these) or doing much of anything aside from drinking and staying away from the more crowded parts of the room. At least he didn’t look like he was doing much of anything. The reason he was there was to scope out everything in the Force. He was supposed to feel through and let them all know about any current changes, disruptions, or interruptions he noticed.

Recon.

Force recon.

There was a pair of words Rex never thought he’d use. He’d been doing a lot of that lately.

Ben’s head snapped up and cold flooded the bond, ice down Rex’s spine. He was looking for the disturbance before the alarm even made it all the way through the bond. The sensation had been so familiar he hadn’t recognized it, hadn’t even clocked it as anything but normal until Ben’d reacted.

Under all the strange new signatures an the Dark currents of the room, there was someone who felt a lot like the base underneath Rex’s brothers. Jango Fett was here.

He was still in his beskar’gam, sans jetpack, still hadn’t painted it since Geonosis, and still made Rex feel like a cadet. He kept still and in his corner, watching the original cut through the room, reputation making way for him. Rex could hear the Abiik-Kemirs having a loud debate over the bonds about who was going to approach him. Ejasa was projecting more anger than Rex’d felt from her since right after the Temple disaster and Silas was burning colder than a glacier.

_I’m handling him, Sen’ika._ Ejasa finally overruled Silas’ arguing, tone completely flat.

She brushed over Rex’s shields, warm and comforting. He noticed how tight he’d let his shoulders get and relaxed them slowly, breathing the Force in deep.

Well concealed paranoia and nerves pooled around Ben in a cold Dark pool as he tracked Fett’s progress through the room. Ejasa moved to intercept and Rex fiddled with the comm they’d given him, doing his best to make it look like normal fidgeting. Whatever that was supposed to look like.

She stopped Fett dead in his tracks.

“Tion’jor gar olar?” Fett demanded.

Ejasa didn’t even feel ruffled. “Par gar jorbe.”

“Ni na cuyi mirsh ibic gar kebi.”

“Mhi enteyor ganayi bora vaii mhi liser.” Ejasa’s voice was sharper than Rex had ever heard it and the tang of something sharp and metallic hit through the bond alongside a flood of red hot anger.

“Serim.” Fett almost drawled, sarcasm almost dripping from his voice. “Ni cuyi tion gar ru’copaani.”

“Ru’cuyi gar kar’tayli?” It was an accusation and something bitter had crawled up and died in Rex’s mouth.

“Kar’tayli tion?” Fett’s voice was still as easy through his bucket as it had been the whole time.

“Gar kar’tayli. Na cuyi jahaati bah ni.” It was like the cooling unit had gotten kicked way over maximum. The entire room felt like Hoth.

“Nari bic jaon’kando?”

“You’re smart enough to know that.” Ejasa’s voice cut like a vibroblade and she walked away without another word.

The beings who’d been close enough to eavesdrop were busy pretending they hadn’t been eavesdropping when Fett turned to look around again. Anger was still bubbling, hot and acidic, in the bond, crawling under Rex’s skin. A lot of it wasn’t his, but he couldn’t really tell whose it was, coming from all sides.

Regardless of whatever that conversation had done, Rex still had to be careful. It wasn’t likely Fett would take one of his clones turning tail like this well, and he hadn’t done everything to get a chance to try and fight the template. Silas was sliding closer to him in a way that he guessed was supposed to be subtle, but nobody in the Abiik-Kemir clan did subtle well. At all. Ben was radiating so much aggression, Rex was surprised the entire pop-up cantina wasn’t completely flooded with ice.

_We’re going soon. I have to find out where Fett parked Slave I and talk to him without so many beings listening in._ Ejasa sounded like nothing even remotely interesting had happened in the last five minutes in the bond. Rex felt like he was dealing with one of the CCs. Again.

_Right. We’ve got some good leads and I’ve got a few beings who’re looking for a contract. We might actually be able to repair some of the damage the damned jetiise did_. Silas was moving back over to the bar.

_Good. Make sure you run them through Kit before you sign us on._

_Yeah; I got it, I got it._

_If we’re done here, I’m going back._ Ben’s voice was strained over the bond, the cold melting into something that almost felt like caf jitters.

_Yeah, you’re clear._ Something warm echoed along the bonds from Silas and Ejasa.

Rex followed Ben out almost on autopilot. The mask made his face itch. He knew it was probably in his head, but he wanted the damned thing off anyway. The idea of confronting Fett made something dark and ugly churn in his core. It was one thing to know that they’d been created to fight and die. Their training had been pretty clear about that. But it was another thing to know that Fett had been in almost the same position as Rex’s brothers and had put them through the same hell without any concern about what’d be done to them. Ka’ra, he’d helped make them into willing slaves.

Compliant organic droids that could be killed without any consequences for anything but the Republic’s budget.

Maybe that wasn’t all on Fett, but he had to know what the longnecks did to the brothers who didn’t measure up. Either that, or he’d been willfully blind. It wasn’t hard to figure out if someone with any sense worth a damn bothered to think about it for even half a second.

Where Rex had felt like he was on fire before, there was something that felt like ice stuck in his chest.

Rex could feel Ben looking at him in the Force, inside the bond and out. There was something Dark that felt like a twisted sort of empathy somewhere between smoke and real in the bond. Rex pulled his hand away from his blaster, not sure when he’d reached for it. His mouth tasted like iron and sand and the air still felt colder than it should’ve for the temperature on the HUD.

///

If Fives didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the ARCs felt distracted. Every vod who left Tipoca had been trained to have the best shields possible for Force Nulls, and ARCs supposedly got even more training. So there was no way Fives could possibly be picking up something like that from Rancor battalion of all vode. But that was what it felt like, and he couldn’t get past it even when they were all lined up in front of Commanders Havoc, Colt, and Regent being lectured about who wanted to be an ARC by Bric and El-Les for the millionth time that week.

Any nerves Domino’d had about the test had faded into annoyance at being treated like younglings when they were about to be tested to see if they were at a high enough caliber to graduate yet. Actually, 4040 had been getting into more and more trouble with Bric as the test got closer. Nothing anybody said got through to him, not even Droidbait. It was to the point where Fives was wondering if 4040 would make it off Kamino without Bric throwing him off the highest point in Tipoca.

Fives tried to pull himself back on point when Commander Colt started talking, but the weird feeling around them in the Force plus the jittery, excitement-nerves crackling through Domino was making it really hard to concentrate. Which just begged the question of if Fives would be more of a burden than an asset with all this Force shavit. Sure, he was aware of everything in a generic sense, and if he had to fight he’d be able to do it. But he wasn’t retaining any of Commander Colt’s or Bric’s speeches. That was a problem.

Beta stepped up and the sour twist of resignation and envy coated Fives’ tongue. 782 and Droidbait had been angrier about the lack of acknowledgement than Fives had the energy for between their exams and the heavy load of extra physical training General Ti had been putting him through. 4040 had taken all of that resentment and put it into driving Bric up the wall and Echo was just glad they weren’t at risk of failing out into being maintenance clones anymore (no disrespect intended to 99).

Beta breezed through the test in near record time and the pressure almost felt like a physical thing pressing in on Fives’ skull. He shook himself and steeled up his shields, gripping the blaster tight in his hands and listening to the other Dominoes talk. Echo bumped his elbow and Fives did his best to look there wasn’t the heavy feeling of what Fives was sure General Ti would call destiny resting on what they were about to do.

“Right, boys. We know what to do. It’s Citadel. Easy. We’ve passed it before and we’ll do it again.” 782’s voice was tight with determination that coated the still-warm net of Domino.

“It’s easy!” 4040 was cheerful, at least.

The alarms sounded alongside a rush of blood in Fives’ ears, heart in his mouth.

There were more droids than the practice, he noticed, feelingly oddly detached. He was outside himself in the Force in a way that probably should’ve scared him. Instead, it was like he was moving at super speed, taking in orders almost before 782 gave them, moving with Domino almost felt slow, despite the fact that they were going through the test faster than they should’ve been able to.

The edges of everything almost looked too crisp and sharp, the lights and noise so bright and loud that it felt hyper real, like the simulations that never managed to feel like reality, no matter how good they were.

Fives took down a commando he’d barely registered, nodding to 4040’s thanks.

“Retrieve the beacon from the tower.”

“Right. Move, you know what to do.”

Domino moved, 782 covering the front, Fives and Bait on the sides, and Echo and 4040 bring up the rear.

Fives took down another three droids, feeling almost like the Force moved his hands for him.

He swept, hearing the blaster fire far away, senses stretched further outside himself than he’d ever been able to go. The Force was electric around him with the echoes of adrenaline soaked into it bone deep.

They darted the rest of the way, leapfrogging from cover to cover until they reached the base of the tower, Echo and 4040 covering the sides and 782 shielding them from the front.

Something pinged through the Force, a shock shooting up Fives’ spine to the base of his skull and he grabbed the cables from Bait’s hands. It was tiny. It was so small that he wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been looking for something wrong.

The cable had been sabotaged. If any of them tried to climb with those, they’d break before anybody managed to get even halfway up the tower.

“Cables are no good! We need to find another way.” Fives had snapped right back into his own skull the second he’d seen the cables.

“What do you mean the cables are no good?! That son of a kriffing Hutt. Bantha osik! Okay, okay.” 782 turned, craning his neck up at the canons that lined the front of the structure.

“Okay, new plan. We’re climbing the canons. Fives, draw their fire, 4040, hit them with a pulse, Echo and Bait are climbing and I’m covering. Move.”

Fives nodded and took a deep breath, drawing on the Force again. Energy flooded his muscles and the sticky, syrupy feeling that’d stuck in his head after that weird episode burned away. He ran forward, feeling the scorching hot energy of the canon bolts scraping against his awareness. He shot at the droids in the turrets closest to the tower, not expecting to make the shot and trying not let the pride get to him when he took down one of them, then another, and another, and another.

He felt it a second before it happened, the burn of the stun bolt going through him and pushing him off his feet.

He landed hard, exhaustion hitting him from whatever the hells had been happening with the Force this whole time. Everything was blurry and sort of gray and there was something wrong with his arm, but he couldn’t tell what.

“Oh kriff, Fives. I’ve got you. This is going to hurt; I’m sorry, vod.”

Fives was amazed that he had the energy to be ashamed that he couldn’t tell who was talking to him.

He choked back a scream as whoever it was picked him up and started running. The piton in his skull drove deeper with every step.

The lights brightened and sent a bolt through what was left of Fives’ skull and he cringed away into his brother. Cool hands were on his head and he wondered when his helmet had disappeared. Something, _someone_ spread calm through the Force and Fives soaked it up. He peeled his eyes open and General Ti was right next to him with his squadmates.

His head cracked open when he sat up and it was all he could do to stay upright. His heart pounded in his chest he realized he was gripping someone’s hand tight enough that it felt like his tendons were creaking with the strain.

“-take care of him. There’s no need to contact Nala Se for something like this. Fives, can you stand?” The General’s voice triggered something deep in Fives’ mind and he forced himself to his feet, ignoring the burn of muscles that shouldn’t have been anywhere near as sore as they were.

“Alright. Come on, easy.”

There was definitely something helping him balance and he realized that it felt kind of like General Ti was holding him upright as they walked.

Time passed in a blur, his head splitting apart more and more with every beat of his heart and every step he took. It felt like he’d been running for days with no food and no water. Something was still wrong with his wrist, but that was so far away he almost didn’t feel it in the face of the headache that was making everything blur in a haze of sharp pain.

The second they had reached wherever General Ti had been taking them, Fives collapsed in a heap on some sort of chair. He curled up, arms around his head to block as much light as possible.

“Rest now, padawan. This will pass.”

///

Shmi was proud. She almost hadn’t noticed Rex slipping into step behind her before it’d been too late. That pride was soured slightly by the fear that hid just behind his eyes when she’d caught him, but it was still an amazing amount of progress. That fear hadn’t lasted long either. As soon as he’d remembered the situation, he’d stood tall, back straight, an eerily familiar defiant expression on his face. He hadn’t even said anything beyond asking where they were going.

Of course, she knew what kind of docks Fett would use: nothing related to Hutts or anything else in that vein. If she was honest, Shmi had never really known what to think or make of Jango Fett. She had a grudging respect for him, and he continued in the Mandalorian way in his own fashion. He also held the same feelings about the way many in the Outer Rim saw fit to make their money as she and the rest of her aliit.

But all of the things they’d heard from Rex had set something venomous alight in her chest. She honestly didn’t really know what she would do when she got the answers she was going to take out of him (out of his hide if need be), but she would have those answers. Ben and Rex deserved to know what he knew at the very least. It also wouldn’t do to just continue along as blindly as they had been so far. It had been somewhat effective. But relying on something as etherial and finicky as Force Visions and meditation based epiphanies made Shmi feel like gravity kept shifting.

Rex ghosted beside her as silently as Ben always did. Even his presence in the Force was quiet, almost none of the earlier turmoil that had battered her shield like a sandstorm around. The only remnant was a cold, Dark breeze that blew in the bond like gusts of late night wind.

She was also aware that Ben was somewhere behind, tailing them silently in the interest of having somewhat plausible deniability when Fett inevitably figured out that it wasn’t just her and Rex who’d stormed his morut’yaim. Some habits had never really faded away, and Anakin’s disappearing act with Dooku being followed by the jetii job and Rex leaving for that too hadn’t helped matters. Still, the more of her aliit around, the better control she’d have on the situation. And getting into any level of confrontation with Fett required control.

Rex paused, head tilting and eyes locked on one of the docking bays. The shadow from the hood of the sandbreaker he was wearing seemed to thicken and there was an icy blast of anger that was quickly tucked behind layer after layer of shields.

“He’s in there?” She had to ask.

“It’s either him or one of my brothers, and I’m the only vod here.” Rex’s eyes hadn’t moved from the door.

“Okay.”

Shmi took the lead, armor a comforting weight and kyber crystal humming quietly from its hiding place. The door didn’t stand a chance against Anakin’s nastier tricks and Shmi spared a moment to be mildly horrified at the things her son came up with sometimes. (However useful said things usually tended to be wasn’t the point.)

Of course, Fett was already outside waiting for her in the docking bay he’d parked Slave I in. He locked onto Rex right away, but Shmi knew he was still watching her as they walked towards the ship.

As soon as they were close enough, he called, “I should shoot you.”

So he’d gone for Basic; whose benefit was that for and did that mean he hadn’t figured Rex out yet?

“You and I both know you wouldn’t make it off the planet. How are we going to do this?”

“You’re the one who’s trying to push me into a corner, Cerar. What jobs I take are none of your business unless they directly involve you or your aliit.” Fett was still watching Rex, eyes only on Shmi when he was talking to her.

“Don’t play stupid, Fett. You wouldn’t have survived this long if you were really that much of an utreekov. I don’t have time for games and politicking.” He was still wearing his beskar, which was a good sign as far as honor went, but made Shmi lean into the Force, weapons setting a warning in the back of her head.

Fett looked at her, and the weird, off-balance feeling of the situation finally sunk in. It was one thing to be aware intellectually, factually, that the vode were clones of Fett. But Shmi hadn’t seen the man since Geonosis, and she hadn’t met any of them then, hadn’t even known they existed. Afterwards, they had all been so different, both from Fett and from each other, that their faces hadn’t even truly registered beyond a shallow, surface level acknowledgement that she knew that face.

But now.

Now she saw Rex’s future laid bare in the cracks and scars of his face, Cody’s hard lined determination in the set of his jaw, Coric’s hands holding Anakin together in his fingers curling around the butt of his blaster. She saw men who’d changed the shape of her life and her family’s lives beyond almost all recognition while saving them in the face of the shabuir who’d abandoned Ben to his fate and made slaves of his sons. And it burned her to see those similarities, the idiocy of not expecting that to bother her piling on top of it all in a rush of sand and acidic anger.

The sensation of his feelings of injustice and anger scraped at her shields and nerves like sandpaper and she knew her eyes were gold.

“I swear on my life and honor, Cerar, I didn’t know about Ben until Geonosis. When I fought him on Kamino, I never saw his face and he was fighting like jetii. Nothing like that osik he does now with you. If I’d known, I would’ve told you.” His honesty was cloying in the Force and Shmi’s lungs seized.

“And you still worked with them? Left your sons to them after seeing what they’d done to one of their _creations_.” She felt Rex tense next to her, cold air that felt practically glacial in the sunlight of Tatooine clawing its way around them. His anger burned and part of her worried about the amount of Dark he was in and around at such a delicate stage of his training.

Natural inclination for Dark or not, it would eat him whole if he walked into it blind.

“I only met him to fight him. I didn’t even know he was a Kaminoan asset until they started trying to train the clones. I only have one son, and I didn’t leave him with them or anywhere near that ka’ra damned planet when I left for Geonosis. They may be alive and sentient, but they are not aliit.”

“You still left them to the Republic.” Rex’s voice was so even that the contrast with his anger made Shmi’s stomach twist.

Fett raised an eyebrow at him. “And that isn’t your concern any more than Cerar’s.”

The air shattered.

Fett’s eyes widened, hand tightening on his blaster when he saw Rex’s face.

“We don’t need you. At this point, we don’t need you. But we did. You knew what they were doing to us. Every test, every scrap, every lesson, everything. You had to have known about the brainwashing too if you knew about Hibir. That puts everything on your head, same as the longnecks. I’m not stupid enough to think that killing you will fix anything, or that I’d even survive that anyway. But there are millions of me, and when they realize what you did to them, the part you played, they’ll come for you. Not even you can outrun that.

“It’s simple. Your best chance at convincing them to leave you alone is to tell us what you know and hope that’s good enough.

“Just like us.”

///

This storm was worse than most. It felt like Tipoca was being shaken by earthquake after earthquake, floors shifting enough to make Shaak’s montrals show the vibrations of the building. She watched Fives breath, a finger on him in the training bond. He’d connected the way she’d been trying to get him to since she’d started him on Shii-Cho. It had all clicked, and she’d felt the second he’d gone into the space she always used for lightsaber combat. But it’d cost him far more than she’d expected. Fives so naturally drew on the Force in a physical sense for combat that she’d expected that strength to carry over to the additional draw in that battle space.

It hadn’t and his pain had cracked Shaak’s head open too.

This was far from the worst overdraw she’d seen, but he’d collapsed in the middle of the test. Domino hadn’t technically failed. He’d made the sacrifice and they had done exceptionally up to that point. It balanced out well enough in everyone’s minds that they were being allowed a retake of the test when Fives recovered without her having to intervene.

The issue was twofold: Shaak wasn’t sure how long in would take for him to recover, and she wasn’t ready to part with him so soon.

He wasn’t ready as a padawan and she knew that she would be far more unsettled and upset by his departure than she wanted to admit. Even to herself. His chest rose and fell and he was _fine_ , but she kept seeing him fall and feeling his head crack open like it was her own and it cut down to her core. That was what was waiting for him when he left and it wasn’t _right_.

That was what was waiting for all of them when they left this place and it was so far past all that was Light and just in the galaxy that it made Shaak wonder why the scent of the galaxy’s rotting soul wasn’t choking everyone in it.

How had everything gotten so Dark?

And this was Darkness. It was Darkness that’d seeped into the Order and stared at her through the eyes of those she’d thought were friends.

But there was something else.

Shaak couldn’t put a finger on what it could possibly be, but there was something besides what’d happened with Fives and Domino that was bothering her. Something or someone that’d been different in some fundamental way. Bric’s sabotage had been disappointing, but not surprising and she wanted him gone. War may not be fair, but the cadets’ lives were hellish enough without his assistance. It was true to him, and El-Les was nothing if not static. That only left the clones.

Qui-Gon had mentioned something about Torrent being different in passing. They were changing. They were all changing, and it was after Christophsis. She had to ask Plo if he’d noticed anything with the 104th. They’d had direct contact with Rex and the Abiik-Kemirs, and that seemed to be the origin of whatever was sweeping through them. Christophsis had been a bloodbath, and a traumatic incident for the entire GAR as well. But that wasn’t it. It didn’t ring true in the Force, and it didn’t track for the change to be so relatively small and subtle if that were the inciting incident.

Shaak wasn’t blind to how efficient the men were at spreading news. They were almost faster than the Coruscant news cycle and they tended to be twice as accurate as well.

The kettle shrieked at her and she poured the water into the teapot, not paying any real attention to it. The earthy scent of the tea helped settle her nerves and her stomach and she sat at her desk again. Fives was still asleep, so deeply that his signature was dimmed.

Domino’s performance on the test had been far above their usual rating. They’d become exponentially more efficient, more cohesive, more capable. But that had almost been their best, and it was at the highest level the citadel was capable of producing. Fives had been moving like a far more senior padawan than he was, and it was a legitimate question if Bric or El-Les had seen enough of it to suspect that something was unusual about Fives. Or if the recording showed enough for any of the Kaminoans to suspect something. Shaak already knew that the Council wouldn’t bother seeing any of the footage of the tests, but it was still something she needed to plan for regardless. She couldn’t just assume that they wouldn’t look.

Someone knocked on her door.

“General Ti?”

“Come in, Echo.”

His nerves bled into the Force despite his efforts, but he looked her in the eye regardless.

“782, 4040, and Droidbait said to just leave it, but sir, if this Force training is what made him collapse like that then I can’t do that. He trusts you, sir. And I do too, I really do. But he’s never had a problem like this and if he does this again, they’ll scrap him no matter what you say. If he does this out there, he’ll die. And I-“ he swallowed “I don’t care what you do to me. I’m not just going to leave him alone like this. We’re not allowed to leave men behind.”

A strange mix of relief and pride settled in Shaak’s chest.

“He’s going to be okay, Echo. It is related to the Force, yes; but it’s…it’s like an overworked muscle. If you push past what that muscle can do, it will give out on you. That is what happened to Fives. It’s much more painful and dramatic than a sore muscle, but it isn’t any more dangerous than that. You can stay until he wakes up if you’d like.”

Echo hesitated, eyes flicking over to Fives before he looked back at Shaak.

“It might help speed up his recovery to have one of his closest brothers here.” With how connected he was to Domino, it probably would. Yet another reason added to an ever-growing list of things Shaak had to find a way to change or fix within the Order.

Echo looked at Fives again before he nodded.

///

Rex sat in the desert twilight, rotgut singeing his nose. Fett had given them a datachip filled with everything he knew about the longnecks and Rex’s brothers. It was burning a hole in his pocket and his stomach churned as he thought about what could be in there. Silas’ vision had been bad enough, the betrayal still binary sun hot and vibroblade sharp. His blasters felt heavier than they had before.

Silas sat next to him, full beskar making him look like some kind of desert creature in the dim light.

They sat quietly for a few strained minutes before Silas started talking.

“My first solo mission was a disaster. Everything that could’ve possibly gone wrong did from day one. I wound up sick and helpless and I barely managed to do my part in time. The people that were supposed to pull me out left me there because I was in too secure of an area. At least that’s what they said.

“We found out later that they’d planned to leave me there from the start. They were purists. Mandalorians were supposed to be at war with Force Sensitives, and if you were Force Sensitive, then you were the enemy. So, I was a disposable asset and leaving me there fixed two problems. They even had a good enough explanation that my aliit wouldn’t try to kill them for getting me re-enslaved or killed.

“I was there for another month and a half before Buir found a way in and Ben was able to get to me.

“I was a kriffing mess at that point. My back was completely torn up, I was so sick I couldn’t see straight. They’d been cutting me off from the Force. They left me connected enough that it wouldn’t kill me, but it made me so weak and groggy that I couldn’t do anything to help myself. I swore that I’d never be that weak again the day that Ben started training me. And there I was, even more vulnerable and defenseless than I was before.

“Anyway, we ran into them again after I was all physically healed up. We were working a basic job against a crew of independent pirates that’d started going after transports to make a quick credit off of the Zygerrians, Hutts, or Black Sun depending on who was the easiest to get to. We’d already polished off the pirates when the shabuire’s ship pulled out of hyperspace in front of us.

“I was still too twitchy to do groundwork, so I was sitting in the cockpit. We’d used a different ship, so they didn’t know it was us. They didn’t know who we were, they didn’t even know that I’d made it out. And I was…it felt like I was drowning in the deepest, Darkest parts of the Force. I don’t even think it’s right to call it anger because it was so much worse than that.

“I hadn’t responded to their call, but Buir had. And I heard them talking. Buir hadn’t ever had any real contact with them. Ben and I’d been the only ones to talk to them, and Ben was too busy to pay attention to the comms. I heard them talking to her, and I heard them talk about me. I heard them say something that could’ve only been about me, and I…”

Silas’ hands shook.

“I wanted to kill them. It was so easy. I had the triggers for the forward turrets under my fingers, they were already hot from dealing with the pirates. Their shields were down. One shot would’ve _ended_ them.

“And the thing was, I knew that if they figured out who they were talking to, they’d find a way to justify killing us all. But that wasn’t why I wanted to take the shot. The only thing inside was every single thing that’d happened to me, every single piece of me that was broken, all those cuts that were still so raw. It was all I could feel.

“There was nothing else.” Silas’ voice was empty and he was so far down and away in the bond that it made Rex cold.

Silas looked at his hands before turning towards Rex.

“I couldn’t take the shot. And I was ashamed that I couldn’t take the damned shot. After everything they’d done to me, and they were a threat to my aliit. But my hands wouldn’t work and I couldn’t make myself do it. The Dark was everywhere and it was so thick that I couldn’t really see anything through it all. So I sat there, and I listened, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to take the shot even if they came after us. Eventually they kriffed off somewhere, and I sat in there and had probably the worst panic attack I’ve ever had in my life.

“They wound up dead not that long after, and I’m pretty sure that was Ben.”

The air felt like something way too delicate in the silence and there was something cold in Rex’s chest.

Silas looked out into the desert again. “I know it isn’t the same and that what Fett did to you and your brothers is so much worse, but that sort of rage. That’s something I get. And the thing is. The thing is that I’m grateful I couldn’t do it. I’m glad that I couldn’t take that shot. I wasn’t at first, but after I’d had the chance to think about it, after it was further away, I was so relieved that I hadn’t done it. I know that it would’ve followed me around forever if I’d killed them like that. It might’ve been justified, but the reason that would’ve made it a good kill wasn’t the reason I would’ve shot them down. And even if nobody else ever knew, I would’ve.

“And I don’t think you deserve to have anything else hanging over your head than you already do. Especially from someone like Jango kriffing Fett.”

With that, Silas resettled against the Buurenaar Cabur like he hadn’t said a word.

Rex’s blasters were still heavy, and there was still acid in his throat. But the shadows were slightly faded and the desert twilight was warm enough that it almost felt like it might be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Tion’jor gar alar-Why are you here?  
> Par gar jorbe-Same reason as you (lit. For your reason)  
> Ni na’nari mirsh ibic gar kebi-I didn’t think this was your thing  
> Mhi enteyor ganayi bora vaii mhi liser-We have to get work where we can  
> Serim-Right  
> Ni ru’nari tion gar copaani-I did what you wanted  
> Ru’cuyi gar kar’tayli?-Did you know?  
> Kar’tayli tion?-Know what?  
> Gar kar’tayli. Na nari jahaati bah ni-You know. Don’t lie to me.  
> Nari bic jaon’kando?-Does it matter?  
> Jetiise-Plutal of Jedi  
> Ka’ra-Stars  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Aliit-Family  
> Morut’yaim-Safe house  
> Utreekov-Idiot, emptyhead  
> Shabuir-An extreme insult
> 
> There are some Mando’a words I had to figure out/make up. I did my best to make it work with what we have canon-wise, but please let me know if something doesn’t work or make sense. I'm sorry for the delay on this. I was dealing with some pandemic related stuff and I couldn't get the chapter out. Everything's fine now and things are settled down, so hopefully there won't be any more delays this long. Thank you so much for your patience!
> 
> (Edit: The Let's Be Reasonable side story is set during this chapter)


	17. Connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some conclusions get drawn

The words were starting to blur in front of Cody’s eyes. He rubbed his face and sat back in his chair, cracking his neck. After Kamino General Jinn had gotten weird. Cody’d been more worried about Fives and making sure that Commander Tano hadn’t noticed anything too incriminating than about the General being quieter than before. Cody really didn’t know enough about him to say if this was really all that weird anyway. But he was acting kind of like Stacks and Bins had when Rex’d warned them all about the chips the first time. And that might be a problem.

Once they were finished with repairs, they were being deployed to the Outer Rim again, but Cody hadn’t been told where yet. It didn’t matter too much anyway. The first priority was the same. They had to clear the rest of the 212th before they tried anything. And that meant that whatever was going on with General Jinn wasn’t something that Cody could do anything about until all of the men were safe.

But technically, it was Cody’s business. It was affecting how the 212th was operating. That made it his business. He couldn’t just spend all this time looking at flimsiwork when he had command business to deal with. Most of it was Stacks’ anyway.

Everything popped when he stood up and stretching felt way too good. How long had he been stuck at his desk? The hallways were bustling and he heard someone in the vents again. Great. He could only hope that Waxer and Boil hadn’t managed to rope the Commander into teaching anyone how to use the vents to get around. That would be a nightmare.

The General was where he always was when Coric hadn’t managed to get to him: the bridge. He spent more time there than anywhere else on the ship combined, including his quarters. He was staring out into hyperspace, eyes distant and glazed over. At this point it was equal odds whether he was mediating or sleeping. Cody approached anyway, careful to make enough noise to knock the General out of whatever trance he was in. Him sleeping on the bridge was a problem. Cody would have to talk to Coric, see if they couldn’t force him into sleeping some more again.

General Jinn snapped out of whatever trance he was in as soon as Cody was within speaking distance.

“Hello, Commander. What seems to be the problem?”

There was no way Cody’s shields were failing that badly. “Just standard reports, sir. Everything is proceeding on schedule. The repairs might even be done early.”

“Good. Perhaps we’ll hear more from the Council about our orders soon.” General Jinn’s voice was even and unperturbed, but there was something in the tone under it that rubbed Cody the wrong way.

“No more news, sir?”

“Not yet. We have a few more days here. I believe they’re waiting until we’re in order before they give us details.” That was a bitterness in that that was way too familiar for comfort.

What the hells was going on with the jetiise?

“Right. What’re your orders, sir?”

“Oh, none for the present. We’re waiting, Cody. Take the time to take care of yourself. Sleep some, eat, all of those things.” The hypocrisy was mind numbing.

“Yes, sir. Permission to speak freely?”

“Of course.”

“I recommend doing the same. The medics are vicious about that.”

General Jinn laughed. “Yes, Coric has already proven that quite well. I’ll certainly try.”

Cody nodded before walking off the bridge. He churned over everything. He’d seen the state of the Order before the 212th had been deployed, and it’d been even more disorganized than Fox’d complained about the Senate being. If they’d torn apart even more, it was possible that some of them were aware of the chips and some of them weren’t. It was even possible that some of them were behind the chips and holding that back from the others for whatever reason. The Order was tied to the Senate in so many ways Cody had honestly lost count. But if Abiik-Kemir’s vision was as viable as Rex said, then whoever was behind the chips in the Senate could’ve brought in some of the Council members and nobody would ever know or think to look. The jetiise were supposed to be trustworthy.

And nobody saw the vode as real beings anyway, so nobody would bother to check.

Was that what General Jinn had figured out? Or was it General Ti who’d found out first? Either way, it didn’t matter. The point was that it had to do with the Council and a lack of information or details. And even if it was just not filling in some of the Generals, that was still Cody’s problem. How was he supposed to keep his brothers safe when his General didn’t even have all the information to do that in the first place?

///

Fives was still leaning on Echo. His brother hadn’t left his side since he’d woken up in General Ti’s office, head still aching. He’d practically forced water down Fives’ throat and hadn’t let him walk by himself, even to get back to the dorms. Hevy kept glancing over at him before going back to the rations. Everyone was very carefully talking around Fives collapsing and Echo going behind them to confront General Ti about it. Droidbait was already raring to go for the retake, Cutup going along with it good-naturedly.

Fives’ shields were still tight. Reaching for the Force felt like using pulled muscle and made his head ache and had him ready to snap at the smallest thing (Fives had no idea what that snap would look like, and who knew the Force could affect him that much). The pressure of it still pressed on his whole body and made him feel like he was trying to swim through something thick and soupy.

“Anyway, the 212th took most of the new troopers. It’s only a matter of time. I bet we wind up with the 104th or something. They just got deployed again.”

“Why would you want to end up with the battalion that gets sent to the most dangerous fronts in the war?” Echo elbowed Fives into taking another bite.

“Because! Have you heard what they do? The entire battalion is made up of some of the best fighters and pilots in the entire GAR. Getting assigned there would get us put into the best position.” Droidbait waved his fork.

“You don’t think they’re going to keep us together, do you? We get put where we’re needed, and everyone’s already in order. We’ll be lucky if two of us wind up in the same place. Let alone all five of us. And even if we do wind up in the same place, it won’t stay that way.”

“Come on, Echo. We’ve got to stick together long enough to run the Citadel again. Or do you really want to get rid of us that much?” Hevy eyed Echo before pushing one of his bars towards Fives with a pointed look.

“Of course not! I’m just trying to be realistic. It’s better to just get over that now so that it’s not such a shock later.” The resignation in Echo’s voice and signature made bile rise in the back of Fives’ throat.

“Yeah, well. That’s not something we need to think about right now anyway. We just have to focus on getting through the test. That’s all we need to do-“

“Commander Colt!” Echo sat straight up, forcing Fives to as much of an attention as he could muster sitting down.

Hevy, Cutup, and Droidbait all turned back with wide eyed eopie-in-headlights looks on their faces. The ARC had his armor on and almost all of the surrounding cadets’ attention was on him. If he noticed, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded to all of them before turning towards Fives.

“Cadet, come with me for minute.”

Fives’ mouth dried out. “Yes sir.”

The rest of Domino’s eyes followed them out. Commander Colt didn’t say anything, and the whole thing felt almost like the first meeting Fives’d had with General Ti. He caught himself reaching unconsciously for the Force, the full body ache making him feel wobbly and off balance whenever it happened. The fact that it was so unconscious made him feel even more off balance than everything else. At least he managed to walk in a straight line without help.

The Commander looked around before he ducked into a side room in yet another place in Tipoca that Fives’d never been to before. Havoc and Regent were both already waiting there, and they didn’t looked surprised by Fives at all.

“I’m guessing you’re worried about why you’re here.” Havoc said, staring up at them.

“Have a seat, vod.” Regent’s helmet was off and he was holding onto a bottle of something that smelled a lot like the electrolyte replenisher the Kaminoans drowned all of them with.

Fives clung to his shields and slid into his seat, doing his best not to look around too much.

“We pulled you out on Cody’s call. He said that it was important that we see to you as soon as possible. When we asked why, he said to ask you. Did that have anything to do with what happened during your Citadel test?” Regent pushed a bottle of the replenisher toward Fives and motioned for him to drink.

“Um, I don’t-I think so? I’m still not sure…what that was. It won’t happen again, or it shouldn’t happen again. I’m not defective! I swear!”

Colt shook his head. “No, no, no, that’s not what we’re worried about. That’s, well I’m not going to lie, that wasn’t great for you. But between your earlier performance in the test and General Ti’s interference, it shouldn’t cost you too badly. What we’re worried about it whatever made that vod’ika reach out to us like that. I don’t know how much you know about Cody, but he never does that unless someone else comes to him first. So whatever it was, it had to be pretty damned important.”

The three of them looked at Fives expectantly. He bit his lip, then steeled himself against the pain before he reached out to the Force. It hurt as much as it had all the other times he’d reached out, but the answer was immediate. They were as safe as it was going to get, the same sort of warmth that surrounded Domino resting around the three of them like a sunbeam.

“It did.” The words came out hesitantly, and Fives winced at how tense he sounded. Of all the brothers to have to deal with this in front of. “It’s sort of easier to just, show you. Um.”

This was going to hurt.

The looks on their faces when he lifted the empty bottle in front of Regent were worth it.

Colt recovered first. “That explains everything. Havoc, let him know I’m going to kill him the next time I see him. What happened during the Citadel?”

///

The first Shii-Cho kata had gotten easy enough that Rex was slipping into the trap of not thinking about what he was doing. Being able to think about and do more than one thing at a time was really useful until it was the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do. After he’d pulled himself back together, he’d spent most of his time going through the datachip. It turned out that Fett hadn’t known as much as Rex had expected him to. But he’d known enough to at least have solid evidence abut what the chips were and what they did. Evidence outside of them all having to try and prove that the bio-chips they’d pulled out had really been in their heads and only having their word that they did what the vode said they did. Not that Fett’s word was really politically viable (from Rex had been able to figure out about the Republic), but it was something.

What kept distracting him while he was trying to fix his arm position for the hundredth time that morning was that Fett hadn’t actually known any more than Bins had been able to figure out about what orders were on the chips. If anything, he knew less. That was more than a bit of a setback. Even if there was an order targeting a specific being or group of beings, the problem was that it could be a cover to make it look like they weren’t involved if the conspiracy about the chips was ever exposed for whatever reason. Rex had hoped that Fett might’ve been able to pinpoint if any of them were actually covers or not, but no luck.

Maybe Ben was right about that after all; except that implied that the Force actually didn’t have any stake in this at all and that annoyed Rex too much to deal with even as a joke.

All of that wasn’t the most distracting, even if it was on a non-stop loop in the back of his head. Cody had mentioned that someone was going to need an out soon. The original plan had been to put them through a Twi’lek liberation network that ran in the Outer Rim. It was already in place and the Twi’leks didn’t like any of this any more than anybody else in the Outer Rim liked having their backyard used as a war zone. Except then, Ryloth had been taken over by the Seppies and it was too dangerous to try and put any brothers through Separatist territory alone to make that worth the risk.

So now, whatever brother was getting out was going to need a ride to Tatooine.

The ride wouldn’t be an issue; the Abiik-Kemirs were gearing up for a job, and Rex was going to be there. He already knew where they kept a shuttle that he could use if worst came to worst. He wasn’t a pilot, but he knew enough to plot a course that wouldn’t get him killed flying by himself. Cody hadn’t told Rex anything about the brother other than that he’d been having trouble dealing with everything after his chip got taken out. He didn’t even know the vod’s name or birth number.

But the longer Rex was there, the clearer it was that Tatooine was not a place for anyone who wanted to get past something like the chips. Or to live a life that didn’t involve needing to have a blaster in your hands while you slept. Rex wasn’t proud of the fact that he was actively avoiding dealing with whatever that said about him, but he wasn’t going to force one of his brothers into that position. And he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that it was clear that they had options outside of bounty hunting and mercenary work. Or worse. He just had to find a way to get them somewhere safe or close enough to it and make sure they had enough resources to support themselves while they found work.

He knew how to take care of his men and how to run a battle, but this sort of planning was not something he had a lot, or any, practice with. The Force wasn’t much help at all. Whatever guidance he got seemed to be generically positive or negative with nothing permacrete enough to really move on. Unfortunately. There was also a really strong warning about Ventress that had drowned out almost everything else when Rex had tried to get something more solid.

Ventress was still an issue. Every answer Rex could think of about why and when she’d left the way she had meant something bad was around the corner. And not just for him or Silas either. There hadn’t been any sign of her that they could find since they’d gotten back from Christophsis, though; so no matter how bad of a feeling Rex had about whatever she was up to, there was nothing he could do about it for now.

Ben came in with a brush of a hello in the bond and a quiet correction to _not be so stiff_ before another lightsaber was humming in Rex’s ears.

What it all came own to, if Rex was being realistic, was that he was sitting on the joints of two actual, physical wars, one metaphysical war, and one political war. And for some reason, the family he’d followed out of the GAR was at the center of all four of those, whether they liked it or not. The Outer Rim demanded that everyone choose a side in all of those once they were even the least bit aware of any of them. Rex had been made to be on the same side from the day he was decanted to the day someone shot him, blew him up, or decommissioned or scrapped him.

He’d chosen a new side in a war he knew nothing about without realizing that he’d done that until he’d had more than five seconds in between learning things or having some kind of Force based crisis to think about it. That it’d turned out to be a war the GAR was about to get into anyway didn’t make that any less terrifying to think about.

Rex deactivated his lightsaber and left, careful to keep far enough out of Ben’s way.

Opening the outer door felt like walking into a blast furnace, and Rex squinted against the combined lights of the suns. He took a deep breath and casted out into the Force, reaching out and enjoying the feeling of the stretch. It’d gotten a lot easier to keep his shields drawn while exploring like this. The strange in between of a picture and knowledge about his surroundings had gotten a lot more detailed too. The desert looked barren, even with his bucket on, but the Force told a different story. There was life everywhere, hiding under the sand and in the shade under the crumbling sandstone formations that dotted the landscape around them.

The flash training reflex to seek cover got swallowed up by the impressions and sensations of the Force around him. And this was the easily the best part of the entire thing. The noise of it blending into this featureless mixture that Rex could just float on. He’d figured out for himself that this was more of a trance than meditation. This kind of connection had been the kind that he was pretty sure Ejasa had been talking about at the start of it all. Meditation was a lot more about honing focus in the Force and looking for answers, and it rested on being able to maintain a trance. Which was something Rex was all too happy to practice doing.

All of the things that kept working in the back of Rex’s head were trailing along in the currents of the Force around him, but they were far enough away that the trance didn’t break. They just blended into the white noise of the millions of other things that made up the Force, even here. He didn’t walk anywhere, even though he’d need to know how well he could navigate in a trance eventually. He just took in the suns and the Force and tried to exist for a minute.

///

Fives’ hands shook as he placed the final part. The casing was done. The inside was done. The crystal was secure. The emitter was good. The entire system should be stable. General Ti was watching, and he could sense the anticipation. His heart stoped in his chest as his thumb hovered over the activator and he looked over at the General. She nodded encouragingly, a tiny twist at the corners of her lips that for her was almost a full blown smile.

Fives took a deep breath and pressed the activator. Violet light lit up the room with a hum that almost sounded warm and something clicked. He could feel the heat of the blade on his face and it left shadows on his eyes when he looked away.

“Well done, Fives.” General Ti was still looking at the (his!) lightsaber, nodding to herself.

It was done. He hadn’t thought it’d be done before he graduated, and if he hadn’t gone down in the middle of the test it wouldn’t have been. That and whatever it was the ARCs wanted Domino in the medical wing for. But that didn’t really matter when he’d just finished building his lightsaber!

///

“So what you’re saying is that you’re halfway done already.”

It was almost too late for Cody to even consider functioning, and Wolffe looked and sounded annoyingly well rested.

“Yeah. Canidae and Canis are clear, Lupus is starting and Lycaon is charted out. The 104th should be completely clear in about a month if it all goes right.” The relief in the room was palpable.

“I’ve got a whole new influx of shinies to clear in Star. Fire, Lunar, and Bronze haven’t even started yet.” Cody felt those chips like they were still in his head and he saw Coric and Kix wince in the corner of his eye.

“To be fair, you’ve got a lot more men to get through than I do. And Pulsar is clear anyway, isn’t it?”

“Pulsar, Solar, and Neutron, yeah. Nova is the one with all the shines. We’re still making repairs, so we can move a lot faster for now. Hopefully we can get through Star and into Fire before we leave Corellia.” Cody saw Coric and Kix wince again. Even with all the medics in Star cleared and on board, that was a lot of work. Cody would know, he had to make all that flimsiwork disappear when they were done.

“Right, but that’s still a lot of progress. You said Alor’ad gave you something important?”

“Yeah.” Cody had been dreading this part of the conversation. “He called in a huge rush the other night. Said that one of his acquaintances had a vision. Apparently the being responsible for this whole conspiracy is a high ranking member of the Senate. And that means-“

“Son of a kriffing Hutt!”

“Yeah.”

“Kark, I knew I should’ve talked to Fox sooner. Kriff me.”

“Fox?” Cody still felt a little bit guilty about leaving Fox out of the loop, but he was around the Chancellor and the jetiise almost constantly.

“I asked him to let me know if he heard anything weird. Turns out that, the Order is even more divided than we thought.”

“Really.” That explained a lot.

“Yeah. He said that it’s pretty well hidden, but you know. His men are everywhere, and he hears all the gossip and rumors. That close, he’s probably right.”

“Osik.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

“What the hells is going on with them? Did Fox say?” Bins cut in, looking up from his datapad for the first time all meeting.

“Not really. Just that they’re not anywhere near as put together as they look. But we already knew that. From what he said, it sounds like that united front is pretty much almost all show at this point.”

“If they’re really fractured like that, then maybe it’s about the chips. Maybe some of them know and some of them don’t, or maybe some of them are in on it and aren’t telling the others for whatever reason.” Cody said, the words not sounding real, even though they’d been rolling around his head since he’d thought of it.

“You think they’d do that?” It was hard to tell in the blue of the holo, but Wolffe had gone pale.

“I don’t know. But it’s possible if Alor’ad’s friend is right, isn’t it?”

Wolffe sighed, looking a little sick. “Yeah. It’s just…General Koon had a few unscheduled meetings with Senator Amidala while we were on Coruscant. She’s relatively high-ranking, isn’t she? He had a meeting with the Chancellor too now that I think about it.”

“Osik, vod. I’m sorry.” There was a new pit in Cody’s stomach and everyone around the table looked a little bit sick too.

“Yeah well, haatyc or’arue jate’shya ori’sol aru’ike nuhaatyc, right?”

“Do you have any idea if it’s the Chancellor or just the Senator?”

“No. I didn’t even know that was something I had to worry about until you said that. If I had to guess. Shavit, I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

“If General Koon is in on the chips, then who else? He didn’t seem like the kind of Jedi to be okay with them.” Bins sounded like he was in shock.

“Well. The odds are good that General Ti knows about them too in that case.” Stacks said, mouth twisted like he’d eaten something sour.

Something tightened in Cody’s chest. “That’s. I. There’s something else. I found another one. Another brother like, you know. He had a kyber crystal, he was being trained. His squad knew too. I let Rancor know to clear them when I told them about the chips. But there’s only one being on Kamino who could train someone like that. Do you really think?”

Wolffe ran his hands over his face as the shock settled in the room.

“We know that the jetiise value emotional control and distance, right? So, if she’s a Master and she’s on the Council, then she’s good enough with that that the rest of the Jedi thought she earned those titles. That means she could probably do a lot of things it doesn’t seem like she’d do from the outside. If they really compartmentalize that much, then maybe she could separate training him from having that chip in his head. We don’t know what they’re capable of. I mean, really, outside of what they taught us on Kamino, what do we actually know about what the Jedi do?” Stacks said, sounding like he hated every word that was coming out of his mouth. Cody knew the feeling.

“Is anyone that cold? Isn’t training a padawan supposed to be like an aliit or something?” Bins looked around the room for an answer.

“It seems more like a master and an apprentice from what we’ve seen here, and I think that’s probably the way most Jedi do things. Besides, if she just sees him as a tool or a means to an end then the chip doesn’t really change anything but how much easier he’ll be to order around,”said Cody.

A heavy, depressed quiet settled in the room and Wolffe spat a few curses that Cody didn’t recognize.

Finally, Wolffe looked up again. “Well, you got Rancor involved, and they’ll make sure that squad is as safe as possible. And if the worst comes to worst, we can try and get them to Alor’ad before it’s too late.”

Cody nodded, feeling his shoulders curl under the weight of everything.

///

She’d never made it to Coruscant before. The closest she’d been was that botched mission in the Mid Rim, and she’d lost her ‘sabers to the same kriffing being as before. She could feel her life hanging in the balance as she crept carefully into the apartment. She knew he was already waiting for her. The place was a piece of rot-ridden shavit in some of the lowest levels on the planet, and the Darkness that churned around it had nothing on the pure blackness that was The Master.

He was sitting, hood covering his face, his chair was the only clean place in the entire apartment. As soon as he saw her, he tossed her across the room and pinned her to the wall like a rag doll with nothing more than a flick of his wrist. She could feel the pressure on her throat, and she fought the instinctual panic that rose at not being able to get enough air.

“You’ve failed, witch.” His voice made her skin crawl. “Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now and save myself the trouble.”

She would not beg.

“I discovered something, Master. Something that changes everything. Something that you wanted before the war started.” Her voice came out half-choked, but she kept steady. Fear was useless here. All there was, was the anger and the Dark. That was the only thing that would see her through.

“Don’t talk around and waste my time, witch. What’s your life worth?”

She took as deep of a breath as she could manage.

“When I was on Christophsis, I fought someone with immense power in the Force. Halfway corrupted already. But they weren’t the most important thing. There was a clone. A clone with his own lightsaber. And he was powerful in the Force, Master. He was barely trained, but it was there. He can’t be the only one. And they’re within your reach. Easily. So much easier than trying to corrupt a Jedi or steal from the Order.” The pressure increased until she could barely get the words out before he suddenly dropped her. She landed on her knees hard enough to hurt, eyes watering, coughing and sucking as much air as she could fit into her lungs.

“Really? And they were both in the same place?” The interest in his voice sent shivers up her spine and made her hair stand on end.

Maybe she would live through this after all.

“Yes, Master. Christophsis. They would’ve left by now, but they were there.”

He was silent for a long couple of minutes before he snapped at her.

“Get to your feet! You will go to Kamino and seek out any Force Sensitive clones while you do reconnaissance on their defenses. Do not let anybody see you.”

“Yes, Master. It will be done.”

The relief made her feel like she was flying as she made her way out of the apartment.

The Jedi were nothing, and those two would fall under her new blades the next time she saw them. Just like everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Aliit-Family  
> Darjetii-Sith  
> Alor’ad-Captain  
> Osik-Shit  
> Haatyc or’arue jate’shya ori’sol aru’ike nuhaatyc-Better one big enemy you can see than many small ones you can’t (Mando proverb)


	18. Troopers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no rest for anyone

Ben kept an idle eye on Anakin as he went through one of his katas. They’d taken off about an hour ago and love of flying or not, staring at the blur of hyperlight was only entertaining for so long. There was a very real sense of tension layered over everything. Their first job all together since the entire jetiise disaster had happened, and their first one with Rex in the mix alongside them. This would be important even without the added part of keeping the first one of Rex’s brothers to get sent to him out of GAR, Separatist, and various scum’s hands.

Ben was well aware that he was in full control of himself for the moment. He was also well aware that that wasn’t likely to change in the face of one of Jabba’s supply runners. These were the type of beings Ben had made his credits dealing with when he’d first come to Tatooine after all, and unfortunately, his aliit still hadn’t found a more efficient source of income than relieving pirates of their stolen goods. Even after turning over certain things to other allies who might need them, there was more than enough to not only support themselves, but maintain safehouses, the Buurenaar Cabur and the shuttle, and pay rent if they needed to borrow another ship.

Even going over all of that, it still boiled away in the back of his head like a kettle on high heat.

Rex, for all the good he’d done (and Ben owed him everything he valued in the galaxy at the moment), made Ben’s migraines and memory headaches come even more frequently than they had when the Healer had been removing the triggers. Jango’s presence on Tatooine hadn’t helped.

Anakin sighed, frustration coloring the bond and Ben looked over. His form hadn’t deteriorated anywhere near as much as Ben had worried it would, but it wasn’t even close to the level it’d been. Anakin pushing now probably wouldn’t cause any permanent harm, and Ben wasn’t about to try and convince him to stop. After the vision and Dooku and Christophsis, there wasn’t a single chance that would do anything other than devolve into an argument.

“What do you think?” Anakin plopped in front of Ben with an audible thump that made Ben wince.

“What?”

Anakin rolled his eyes. “About the ‘sabers. I know you looked at them already.”

Right. Ventress.

“They’re well constructed. A little nonsensical, but I suppose-“

“A little nonsensical? They were basically wired to explode!”

“Only if they got messed with, which was probably the point.”

“It’s still stupid, though. If she’d gone in in a rush she could’ve blown her hands off.”

“Well it doesn’t seem like she was worried about that.”

“Yeah, and isn’t that weird? Come on, ori’vod, you’re the one that taught us about all this stuff in the first place.”

Ben didn’t know what Anakin was digging for.

“It’s not how I was made to do things, but it makes more sense for them to have changed after what happened with me if she’s. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to not come back. If they didn’t change after I disappeared, that’d just be stupid.”

“Ge’soleta diryc gar aru’e sha gar jar.” Anakin quoted wryly.

“Exactly.”

They sat in silence for a while, the Force getting thick with something that Ben couldn’t quite read. He halfway wanted to ask Anakin what the colors looked like, but he’d gotten out of the habit of doing that years ago, and it felt like a strange question to ask now.

“You’re bluer than you used to be.” Anakin said offhandedly and Ben realized how thin he’d let his shields get around the bonds.

Anakin shook his head, a bitter smile on his face. “Don’t worry about it. I’d probably figure it out anyway. Maybe.”

Blue.

“What does blue mean, exactly?”

“Well if you’re asking for color theory-“

“Don’t be a mir’sheb.”

“Okay, okay. I don’t actually know. Different colors can mean different things for different people, you know. I mean, there’re trends, but I think with you it’s just kind of a combination of duty and something else. It’s gotten a lot more saturated since the thing with Dooku. The second thing.” He clarified needlessly.

Blue.

Why was that the part that was bothering him?

“Anyway. Padmé said that we need to watch our backs with the Core systems for a while.”

Friends with a Republic senator, when had their lives gotten to the point that that was the most normal part of the conversation?

“Really?”

“Well, not in so many words, but she said the chancellor was asking about us. So, you know.”

“And did you mention that to your buir?”

“ _Yes_.” Anakin rolled his eyes again and summoned his comm from the other side of the room.

“And?” Honestly.

“She said that we weren’t going anywhere near there unless Rex had something he needed to do anyway.”

“There we go, then.”

“We can’t just avoid the Inner Rim and Core forever.”

“We did pretty well for ten years before.”

“Yeah, and now there are a bunch of powerful people who know that we’re a Force Sensitive aliit that abducted a vod and live in the Outer Rim.” Anakin was doing something with his comm that Ben couldn’t quite follow.

“What’re you actually worried about?”

Anakin stopped, movements stilling and eyes glazing over. His head tilted and his presence dimmed, the bond cooling as the warmth slipped away with him.

“I don’t even know.”

///

Fives woke up, the smell of bacta overwhelming his senses. He groaned and sat up, steadying himself blindly as his head spun. The rest of Domino was around, all of them as fuzzy in the Force as he felt. The ARCs felt unnaturally sharp in comparison, something that felt like an unreasonable amount of amusement coming from one of them.

“Welcome back, vod’ika.”

Fives groaned again and opened his eyes. It was a blur of eye-seering white and Fives shook his head, regretting it instantly as the blur spun.

“Yeah, that’ll wear off soon. It’s from the drugs they have to use while they’re doing the surgery.”

The Force felt weirdly clear. Like there’d been a curtain or something in front of it that’d been ripped away with whatever surgery he’d just had. He sank into it almost without realizing what he was doing. It felt so clean and Light. He was pleasantly warm and he floated in the sensation of jatne manda that felt like it was rooted into the Force itself.

“Hey, Fives. You still in there?” Despite the laugh, the concern was clear in the Force and Fives opened his eyes again.

“Yeah.”

Havoc laughed and Cutup groaned from his bed.

“You’ve all got to get back on your feet soon. This assessment only takes so long.” Colt’s tone made Fives jolt up straight-backed and (hopefully) bright eyed and he saw Hevy, Droidbait, and Echo doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

“Relax, you’ve got another half hour,” Regent said flatly, giving Colt a look. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

With that, the three of them walked out leaving a woozy Domino behind.

“Does anybody know why we all had to have our skulls cracked open?” Cutup asked, words slurring.

“No idea. But it sounded important, and they’re ARCs.” Hevy was stretching and Fives was jealous of how coordinated he was already.

“Do you guys feel different?” Asked Echo.

“What do you mean-“

“Yeah.” Hevy and Fives answered at the same time.

“Is it, you know, _stuff_?” Echo was stiff, eyes wide as he turned toward Fives.

“That’s part of it, but it’s like thinking is easier. Right?”

“Speak for yourselves!” Cutup moaned.

“Wait until the anesthesia wears off, di’kut.” Hevy’s shoulders cracked and everyone else winced.

Fives felt the Force immediate and almost burning-hot through his blood. It felt like it was vaporizing the drugs that were working their way out of his system. The room still looked brighter and the bond felt more alive than ever. What had they _done_ to them?

“Right. So. We’re taking the test again.” Droidbait startled them all.

“Right. It’s going to be the Citadel again. And we have to make sure all of us get through it this time.” Hevy took charge. “So, Fives. You’ve got a grasp on whatever did that to you, right?”

“Right.” Fives didn’t really know how to keep that from happening aside from to keep himself from slipping into that space again before he’d had the chance to really practice with it.

“Good. Then we’ll be fine. We already know how to pass the Citadel, so all we have to do is get through it and we’ll be clear.”

///

They’d come out of hyperspace far enough from the other ship that they could stay undetected until they were ready. Ejasa had gone over the plan with them all before they’d dropped and Rex was standing next to the inner hull door with Ben waiting for Silas to dock them on the pirates’ ship. The sensation of the well ordered ice from Ben was so familiar that it froze Rex in his tracks for a second when he felt it.

He shook himself out of it and focused on the Force, letting his senses stretch and feeling everything come alive in the Force. Space felt cold outside the ship, but it wasn’t dead, just distant, almost like it wasn’t noticing them at all unless they called on it. He solidified his shields again, firming them up against whatever was about to happen.

His heartbeat was picking up and the closer the got to the ship, the sharper his focus in the Force got. He was in the space he’d been meditating in, senses way past his body and settled deep in his core all at the same time. He could feel everything around him and he was full of energy, ready to move at the first sign to go. Something similar, but a lot colder and more calculated was settling along the bond from Ben’s side and Rex felt Ejasa and Silas locking in too.

_Okay, Silas is about to start moving in. Remember, no obvious Force tricks of any kind. If any of them get back to the Hutts with that._ Ejasa didn’t need to finish.

_Hang on_.

The ship gave a sharp jolt, artificial gravity struggling to compensate for whatever Silas was doing up there. There was some good natured complaining that sounded like it ran as deep as the bonds between the other three and the warmth extended to Rex. He still had no idea what to do with that, not at all willing to breach whatever unspoken rules there were and ask if they meant to do that. Bringing him in on work was one thing, but that was their aliit, and he wasn’t really a part of that beyond whatever came with training the way he was. He knew that much.

The ship jolted again and there were some ominous creaking noises.

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll hold just fine.” Ben’s voice was icy, and the omnipresent Coruscanti accent was almost inaudible.

Rex nodded, but scanned the numbers on his HUD just in case.

_Okay, almost there. They’re good._ Silas sounded grudgingly impressed as the ship groaned again.

There were some hollow knocking sounds on the outer hull and the readouts on the side of the inner door went green.

_Got you_.

Ben stepped in front of Rex as Ejasa came down the hall.

_Ready?_

_Breach._ Ejasa nodded.

Rex steeled himself one more time as the doors slid open, blasters in his hands, charging after Ben as soon as the doors opened. He could sense the pirates before he could see them, the anger slicking through the Force like fire. His blasters were set to stun and he took the other side of the hallway from Ben with Ejasa next to him. He was moving fast, knowing that the shot was good before it hit and moving to the next target. They were wearing good armor, but he knew the weak points, could see them from where he was standing.

The bolts were flying, energy buzzing in Rex’s ears as they fried the air they were flying through. He followed the Force, feeling the danger up his spine like shots of adrenaline and the good shots like small victories fueling the currents around them. It was all part of a storm cell that read like a map in Rex’s head.

Their group was down and Ben was walking calmly over his group, nothing but the battered bodies of the pirates showing what he’d just done.

Rex followed, feeling the dimming presences of a few of them along his shields. Ejasa didn’t seem to pay any attention to them either, walking around them the same way as Ben. She had a droid popper in her hand and Rex followed her, feeling the signatures they were sweeping towards.

A shot rang and Ben flinched back, a black scorch mark on his shoulder.

_Two IGs_. He warned, cold annoyance like venom in the bond.

_Keep back_. Ejasa tossed the droid popper and the too-familiar sound of electricity discharging and metal hitting the floor came from around the corner.

Rex rounded the corner behind Ben and felt the presence behind the door.

They were coming through.

His blaster was up and fired almost before he finished the thought and the pirate was dropping in the doorway, bolt hitting the weakest part of their armor.

Ben nodded before he kept moving. There was a huge concentration of presences where they were heading and Rex could sense the weird sort of electrical edge of droids nearby.

Another droid popper went off and Rex and Ejasa charged through the next door behind Ben, not paying attention to the droids on the other side of the hallway. Ejasa had a blaster drawn in the blink of an eye and a pinpoint shot took down a huge Trandoshan coming for them. Ben was headed for the smuggling compartments and Rex and Ejasa split off for the cockpit.

Rex fell in behind Ejasa as she pushed down the hallway. The closer they got, the more droids there were, and most of them weren’t even really battle or assassin droids. Normal karking cleaning droids were attacking them with something that looked suspiciously like a mop. Silas’ electro-disks took them down as well as the droid poppers and Rex made a note in the back of his head to find a way to get some to Cody or Wolffe.

They cut through the crew like a hot vibroblade, droids and all. Rex found himself knowing the ship more and more at every turn. Something telling him exactly where to go, where the traps were, where thereinlets and shadows for beings to hide in. Their presences were so clear that it was almost like he could see them on his HUD. He kept up behind Ejasa, taking the other side of the hallway and making sure no one got a good shot at her.

They reached the door in something that felt like way too long and way too short all at the same time. Rex could feel the intense burning cold of Ben fighting in the bond, Silas keeping a finger on all of their pulses, and Ejasa leaning into a mix of Light and Dark that swirled around her like a cloud.

He realized that his heart was pounding and his nerves were buzzing with left over adrenaline and energy that had nowhere to go yet.

_We’re on target. How far out are you?_ Ejasa sounded completely calm and collected and Rex could feel her reaching out to feel for whatever was waiting for them past the door.

_One minute._ Ben’s voice was completely different and it sent chills up Rex’s spine.

Rex checked his charge packs and re-centered, letting the storm the Force had turned into clear away the fuzziness that tried to settle in his head. The presences past the door were getting tenser by the second and the Force felt like it was doing the same around them.

_We’re using the Force, so it’s paying more attention to what’s happening. They’re projecting a lot of feelings into it, so it’s responding in kind_. Ejasa explained, shifting on her feet a little, the brown paint of her armor standing out in the industrial metal colors of the ship around them.

Rex nodded and took another look at his HUD, the readout backing up what he already knew.

_Clear._

Ejasa was at work on the door before Ben finished and Rex was right behind her, ready.

The door slid open and Rex was firing as soon as there was a crack. Ejasa rushed in under his cover, taking her own shots. The pirates stuck to taking cover behind their chairs. That wasn’t enough to save them.

Ejasa pulled the Force around her and it felt like she was controlling the wind.

She was out in the open and Rex’s heart stopped.

There were three.

Ejasa moved, just on the edge of too smoothly for a human. She wasn’t phased by the bolts flying around her and if Rex hadn’t been able to feel what she was doing, he would’ve just thought she was jate’karyc. But he could feel her reaching through, using the Force to keep out of the line of fire for just long enough to get where she needed to go. It was taking all of her focus and concentration, and it was by far one of the most jetii-like things Rex had seen any of them do since the fight with Ventress. And even that hadn’t been like this.

She fired, one down, two to go.

A duck, aim adjusted, and another shot.

One left.

Rex moved to the sound of another shot.

It had taken a disturbingly short time for them to take the crew.

Ejasa nodded and he heard her let the others know that they were clear. Silas answered in the background, letting them know he was coming to do the ‘usual’ to the ship’s systems.

Rex breathed, letting it all spin for a second before he forced himself back on point. He pulled back into his core, a tinge of pride at how much energy he still had settling in his chest. Reaching out like that was getting easier, even if he was still more tired after such a short exchange than he’d want to be.

He felt Ejasa’s acknowledgement of it over the bond and the warmth of pride grew a little further.

_We’ve got a lot of spice and pilfered luxury items in here._ Ben reported.

_What kind of luxury items?_

_The kind rich beings pay too many credits for. You know: nice cloth, couture, precious gems and metals. And a set of beskar’gam’s worth of beskar._ Ben’s voice dripped with cold, Dark anger on the last sentence.

Ejasa hesitated, her shields drawing tighter and shoulders tensing.

_Bricks, or?_

_Melted down already._

Ejasa’s head dipped and she took a deep breath. Rex could feel something resigned in the Force around her. The bond was subdued, everyone moving to make sure the pirates couldn’t retake the ship before they’d taken everything they wanted.

///

Shaak felt the weight this test bore. Fives had recovered well, and it didn’t seem like anyone dangerous had noticed. Domino was in the prep chamber, Bric had been dealt with, Commander Colt was back to observe their test again. And whether she was ready to let him go or if he was ready to go, Fives had completed his lightsaber and learned one of the most important lessons for any being to learn: limitations. Her theory about Echo’s presence accelerating his recovery had also proven true, which spoke well to the nature of the bonds between Domino.

The signal went off and Domino surged into the test chamber in a well ordered rush, Hevy already leading them through. Shaak could sense Fives sinking into his usual level of use. There was an echo of the minor discomfort from it, but he wasn’t sinking into the trap of being terrified of using the Force again like some students did. Whatever the reason, there was a warm, pleased feeling in the Force that Shaak felt as well.

They got their orders and they moved like a well oiled machine, adapting easily to the droids that came in behind them.

El-Les was observing silently next to Colt. Shaak hadn’t decided what to do about Bric. Whether Cutup had told anyone or not, the men talked, and Shaak made it a point to keep on top of the rumors that circulated Tipoca. Bric had messed with Cutup somehow, and had given him his name in the process, apparently. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything she could really use to justify getting rid of Bric outside of what he’d done to the first test Domino had taken.

They were getting another chance, though. And this one they were on track for a personal best again. So that wouldn’t give her a good enough reason that the Council wouldn’t take issue with it. But she couldn’t just let whatever he’d done to Cutup go unpunished. She took a moment to draw the Light in, letting it move through her before she released it all in one long, slow exhale.

They’d reached the tower and were climbing, Droidbait leading the charge up the building while Hevy and Cutup covered him, Fives, and Echo. Hevy and Cutup started their climb, Fives and Echo covering them as Droidbait ran for the beacon. She could feel Fives using the Force to augment his strength and reflexes, drawing on it for that so naturally that it almost felt less normal when he wasn’t doing so.

The main lights came back on as Hevy and Cutup hit the top of the tower and she felt the victory cry in the Force, Domino gathering together in a warm ball of it, bright enough to make even Shaak smile. Satisfaction came from El-Les and Colt.

The ARC turned towards Shaak. “You were right about their potential.”

There was a strange sort of sensation around the words, some private amusement at something about the words that was just peeking past his shields.

Shaak simply nodded. They’d passed the test, which meant that the biggest hurdle had been cleared. And she knew she hadn’t mistaken the protectiveness she’d sensed from Colt. Whatever he might or might not have noticed or known about Fives, she was confident that same protectiveness would keep her padawan safe.

///

Fives was riding on a high of the warm nest of Light that was buzzing in, through, and around Domino. They’d done it. They’d gotten through, they’d passed, and they were clear. They’d noticed the tiniest edge of clarity to everything. It was like they’d suddenly gotten access to part of their brains they hadn’t been able to reach before. They were all faster as a group and everything felt more immediate than before. Fives felt like something cold had been taken out of him, the Light surging in to take its place and leaving him feeling like he was weightless.

They had their new armor in their arms and an order to put it in their lockers and prepare to get their new orders and ship out in two days.

Hevy, Cutup, and Droidbait were all flying high, leaking relief and victory and warmth. Echo wasn’t cold, but there was an undercurrent of nerves and resignation that made Fives hang back with him, walking alongside and matching pace. The other three’s chatter reached them in bits and pieces and Fives couldn’t help but laugh at Cutup’s commentary on El-Les and Bric.

“Was this what you meant? When you said you had a feeling?” Echo asked finally, stopping in his tracks.

Fives stopped next to him.

The last few weeks had been one weird, nerve wracking thing after the other. Before then had turned up a ton of Dark things that shouldn’t’ve been anywhere near Tipoca. Not to mention all the things he’d learned about Hibir and what’d been done to him while they were looking.

But this.

He hadn’t seen it happening this way, not that he’d ever had a vision as far as he knew. But he knew that this was right. The feeling of the entire Force bearing down on them and watching their every move had gone away as soon as they’d passed. This had been important somehow. And they’d done what they were supposed to do as far as he could tell.

“I think so.”

Echo’s face twisted at that and he looked down the hallway at Hevy, Cutup, and Bait.

After a long few seconds he looked back at Fives. “What do you think Rancor did to us?”

Fives stuttered over the question.

“I’m…I don’t really know. But I don’t think it was anything bad. They said they were taking something out, right? So it’s probably something that would’ve messed with us if they left it in.”

“But why aren’t they taking it out of everyone else, then? And why did they cover it up? We all feel fine, but what if it’s a problem and it doesn’t show up until it’s too late.” Echo’s eyes were darting around the hallway and Fives could feel the nerves he’d somehow buried.

He opened his mouth on instinct, going to defend the ARCs. But General Ti’s voice hit him over the head and he paused, searching though his feelings, through what the Force was telling him. It was still more immediate and close than it’d been before whatever had been taken out of their brains had been taken out. But that didn’t mean that he could feel through the mud any better than he had before. He knew that he was taking too long to respond, but he kept looking.

Finally, he found it.

“I don’t think it will be. The Force is. It’s a lot closer. It feels like whatever it was they took out was keeping me from being able to connect properly. Like it was clouding it or something. I think that’s Dark stuff, from what General Ti’s showed me. So, I don’t think them taking out is a bad thing. I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t feel like it was dangerous, and I know that feeling better than pretty much anything else.” That got a wry laugh from Echo. “I don’t know why they did what they did the way they did it, but they’re ARCs. They know things we don’t, they have way more training and experience than we do. For all we know, they were just covering it up from the longnecks. Besides, they did it on Cody’s say-so, and you know the rumors about the 212th. He wouldn’t have asked if he thought it would put any brothers at risk.”

///

Wolffe stared at the reports, eyes glazed over and head far away. They were trying to find some sort of Seppie weapon that had devastated everyone else that had ever come into contact with it. The most recent batch of reports gave them an area that was still too big to try and search, but they weren’t far from a solid point to begin a sweep. And that was part of the problem. They were close to something that dangerous with a commanding officer who might be part of the reason why he and all his brothers were compromised.

The 212th was supposed to be leaving Corellia within a day and either come help the 104th with whatever the Seppies had cooked up now or go reinforce General Secura and the 327th. Wolffe really wouldn’t mind seeing Cody face to face again. But that meant having another Jedi who might in on the conspiracy aboard, and it meant dealing with a commander who might be being brought in on the conspiracy too. And if she wasn’t then that was still a problem because she might be in danger from them and Wolffe would be damned if he let someone hurt a shiny if he could help it. Jetii or not.

There was something about this entire situation that was stuck in a loop in his brain. It was more than everything that was obviously wrong. It was pretty clear that whatever weapon they were looking for, it was going to be a trap when they found it. But it was more than that. There was something under the surface, something that was right under his nose that he couldn’t find.

He finally just decided to try it.

It wasn’t technically an emergency, but Cody wouldn’t have told him yet; and this was something he needed to know anyway. Besides, they could use a counter to whatever the jetiise were holding over their heads right now.

The comm was weird looking, and it was pretty obviously homemade from a lot of parts that looked like they shouldn’t have ever been put together. But it still worked, loosening a tiny knot in Wolffe’s chest. It rang for a little too long, and he started trying to figure out how to ask what he needed to in a message when someone finally answered.

There wasn’t any picture at first, just the faint blue fuzz of the holo. Wolffe held still, waiting for whatever it was Rex was doing.

Finally, someone came into view and Wolffe almost choked on his own spit; Ben, Hibir, had answered the comm.

He had a mask on, but Wolffe had grown up on holos of him doing everything he dealt with from General Koon now. He’d recognize Hibir anywhere. The hair alone was a dead giveaway after Tatooine.

They both stared at each other over the comm for an awkward couple of seconds before Ben finally said something.

“I’m sorry. Normally I wouldn’t have answered his comm for him, but he said that he was waiting for one of you to get back to him about something rather urgent.” His Coruscanti accent was thicker than it’d been on Tatooine.

“It’s fine. I was about to leave a message anyway.”

“Anything you want me to tell him, or would you rather I just let him know you called?”

Wolffe felt like he was hallucinating, how could someone who had been Hibir be as awkward as a shiny talking to a civilian for the first time?

“It’s more of an update and a few questions than anything else.”

“Of course.”

Actually. “There might be something.”

Ben straightened and it was like Wolffe was looking at a completely different being with one change of posture.

“I don’t know what he might’ve picked up, but I was wondering what you might’ve noticed about General Koon.”

A slight pause and an almost imperceptible shift in his seat.

“Noticed how, exactly?” Was Wolffe imagining that Concord tint to those words?

“Any sort of hint to him knowing about something. You know.” There wasn’t a single chance that beings like these didn’t know about the chips after living in close quarters with someone who’d had their pulled.

Ben paused again and Wolffe could see him working through that.

“There wasn’t any hint at malice or ill intent. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any, it’s relatively easy to conceal your intentions if you already know how to make yourself disappear. Someone like General Koon definitely has more than enough experience to know how to do that if he should want to for whatever reason. It didn’t feel like he knew any more than he said he did about the situation he was asking us about. I also didn’t sense any sort of change in how he saw our mutual friend. And his situation was resolved by then.” He spoke quickly and clearly, saying it like he was delivering a verbal report of some kind, and Wolffe had chills.

Wolffe nodded anyway, filing that away.

“Did your vod mention anything?” Wolffe had noticed how close of an eye General Koon had kept on Abiik-Kemir when they’d been bringing them to and from Cristophsis; and he’d heard the rumors the 212th had spread besides.

“Not that he brought to me, no. It might be wise to ask your own about it. He was around for more of that than I was.” Ben’s voice was carefully neutral and Wolffe’s gut twisted again.

“Right. Thank you, then.”

“Of course. And I assume you’d like me to pass on that you called.”

“Yeah.”

Wolffe signed off without much more fanfare and noticed that his hands were shaking a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Aliit-Family  
> Ori’vod-Older sibling/Brother  
> Ge’solata diryc gar aru’e sha gar jar-Underestimate your enemy at your own risk  
> Mir’sheb-Smartass  
> Buir-Parent/Mother  
> Vod’ika-Younger Sibling/Brother  
> Jatne Manda-A complex feeling of being at one with one’s life and clan  
> Jate’karyc-Lucky, star guided


	19. Breakpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th investigates the reports of missing ships in the Abregado System.

There was a change in the mists, something strange that was twisting through the Force. And it all started with Wolffe. Plo wasn’t sure what to make of the sudden shift in Commander Wolffe. He hadn’t been so suspicious and closed off since Plo had first been assigned the 104th. True to established patterns, the entire battalion followed their commander’s lead, taking their cues from him. Especially the ones who’d undergone the change that was still steadily sweeping through the remaining two companies.

Plo didn’t want to pry into what little privacy they were allowed, but whatever was wrong was muddying the Force and centered around himself and the men as a whole.

However, the present wasn’t the time to try and ask the Commander about whatever had gone on. They had finally gotten the last piece of the puzzle they needed to get to whatever weapon the Separatists had created. Abregado-Rae. It was far deeper into the Core than the separatists should have been able to get, and far too close to the Spine than was comfortable. Plo had a bad feeling about the trap he and the 104th were flying towards, but there was very little choice. Something had to be done about the attacks, and the 104th was the closest to whatever it was.

Commander Wolffe straightened to attention as Plo walked onto the bridge.

Plo could feel everyone’s eyes as he made his way to the window. There was something wrong. He could sense some future problem, something or someone hiding in the mists of the Force. It seemed that the murkiness that had descended on the Force was as thick here as it was on Coruscant. Not without a chance at some sort of clarity, however. Plo mulled over that and set it aside for consideration at a more opportune time.

“Commander Wolffe.”

“Yes sir?” He was behind Plo in an instant.

“Is there any sign of the enemy vessel?”

“No sir. We’re still scanning, but there isn’t any evidence of any unusual traffic here.”

“Thank you.”

Plo saw the commander nod. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Please, Commander.”

“I think they’re drawing us into a trap. They’ve been testing whatever this weapon is on larger and larger targets. I think we’re next. Proof that it can take on Destroyers. I advise reporting our location regularly and switching to high alert status. Just in case.” Wolffe was taking more time with to speak than he usually did, and the delay felt purposeful, consideration taken for every word.

Nevertheless, Plo agreed. An abundance of caution would not be amiss, given the pattern that had drawn them to the Abregado-Rae system to begin with.

“Yes. I believe you’re correct, Commander.”

Commander Wolffe’s face didn’t change, but his eyes were sharper than they’d been before. Plo kept steady and filed that away for consideration as well. It was less than a second of pause and then he was moving to carry out his recommendations with Plo’s order behind them.

///

There was something just out of reach that kept needling the back of Wolffe’s head. Issues with General Koon aside, this mission was wrong somehow, in a way that made Wolffe feel a little like he was staring down the barrel of a blaster. He’d ordered a full stop on chip removal until they finished with whatever the hells this was supposed to be. Tidal was pissed about it, everyone who knew was pissed about it, but something wasn’t right; besides, doing brain surgery in an active combat situation was stupid anyway.

The scans weren’t turning anything up, like that was ever a good kriffing sign when they were supposed to be looking for a mysterious superweapon.

What wasn’t helping was everyone on the bridge being Canis and knowing exactly what was going on. None of Wolffe’s men were stupid. They could be complete di’kute, but none of them were stupid. Wolffe telling them to watch themselves around the General one more time had apparently told them enough to draw their own conclusions about what was going on. In a way, that was a good thing, but someone was going to slip up eventually. Even before then, that kind of tension, that kind of mistrust on a battlefield? That would get someone killed.

Wolffe scanned the space outside the viewport, squinting at what he could see of the system. There wasn’t anything visible yet, which put him more on edge than he would be if he could see what they were chasing after. The closer they got without seeing something, the tenser Wolffe felt about the whole thing, and it seemed like even General Koon wasn’t immune to the tension that was winding its way through the bridge.

Another bad kriffing sign.

Wolffe didn’t know what more he could do. Every possible precaution they could take was already in motion. Everything in him was saying that they needed to leave, that they were heading towards something they couldn’t beat or outmaneuver. He knew it wasn’t nerves from reading the reports about the damned thing; he wasn’t a kriffing shiny anymore. It was more like having a rock in his boot or something: annoying but not serious. Except that it felt deadly serious, and he couldn’t figure out why this, of all things, had him so rattled.

Wolffe wasn’t a hut’uun, and this wouldn’t turn him into one either.

He sighed and turned back to the scanner.

///

Plo drifted on the Force, half an ‘eye’ on the evolving situation on the bridge and the rest of him mind devoted to sifting through whatever warning the Force was trying to give him. The death that had poisoned the mists was thick enough to feel almost liquid, the fear darkening everything and forcing Plo to keep a tight hand on his shields. He wouldn’t be able to sense any sort of presence so far away, but it was more than that. At least, Plo thought it must be more than that. Save a direct confrontation, the Force was not in the habit of sending warning about individual beings unless they were at some sort of crossroads.

Nervous tension was winding its way through the men, curling around the bridge and sliding through the Force like venom. The origin, however, was unclear. And there was the issue. Plo couldn’t sense any kind of Dark machination, and none of the men seemed to be leaking past their shields enough to affect this sort of dramatic change. It was a mystery, and Plo was quite content with one mystery without having to solve another of a more metaphysical variety.

“There’s a blip on the scanner, sir! Something huge!”

Wolffe swooped in on the scanner almost as quickly as Plo, eyeing the viewport to try and see whatever it was the scanner had picked up. It was a small blip, but if they were far enough away not to have visual contact yet, that kind of register would be massive when they got close to it. Three Destroyers would be enough with standard Separatist weaponry, as long as Plo was careful. But the unknown factor was the complicating factor.

“Keep me apprised of the situation.”

“Yes sir.”

Plo moved away, eyes on the viewport again. Mysteries of the Force, in this case, were not as important as finding the weapon. The Abregado-Rae system was red in the ‘port, and that same Dark sensation was back. It was stronger now, and if it was, in fact, a being, they were either deliberately not shielding themselves properly, or they just weren’t bothering in a place so far removed from other beings. Or they were looking for anyone coming. None of those options was encouraging.

Wolffe came up behind Plo’s shoulder.

“We made the report, General. There’s a comm from the Council for you, high priority.” There was a hyperlight fast twist around Wolffe at some part of that that Plo didn’t quite catch.

“Let’s go see what the Council has to say, then.” Truth be told, Plo was shocked that they’d commed him directly as a group, even for this.

The cracks between them all were deepening. Plo had never been under the impression that a Jedi had to be a pacifist. He had fought to preserve his own life and protect others many times over. But this war was different; the costs were already far too high, and they would only get higher. The amount of power the Council had already given the Republic over the Order as a whole was deeply disturbing, and it limited their ability to protect the clones if it came down to that. Not to mention the amount of damage it had done to the cohesion of the Jedi as a whole. The fissures went so deep that the repairs would take years, potentially decades to heal.

Yoda, Mace, and Ki-Adi were displayed in a neat circle, Adi’s presence a notable hole in the display. As soon as Plo drew into frame, Wolffe right alongside, they all stood up straighter, eyes sharp.

“Made contact have you?” Yoda started.

“No visual contact, currently, but we have them on our scanners, Master Yoda.” Plo heard Wolffe shuffle to get a better view of the comm. Strange.

“Any evidence as to what the weapon could be yet?” Mace’s words were as clipped and short as they’d been since the Abiik-Kemir vote.

“No sign of any wreckage to indicate anything, no. I strongly suspect that this is a trap for them to test this weapon on our Destroyers.” Plo also suspected that Mace, at least, already knew that as well.

“It’s a strong possibility. We’ve heard reports that their may be a high ranking officer involved, potentially Grievous. You must attempt capture before you try to destroy the weapon. If we can take Grievous, we may be able to interrupt the droid chain of command well enough to get an edge.”

“Indeed. We will continue the periodic check-ins. I’ll be certain that you’re told when we know what the weapon is.” Plo could feel the men’s eyes on him again, and a sense of something that almost felt like indignation from the comms officer.

Wolffe was completely blank, and that was unusual as well.

“Good, this is. A chance to capture both Grievous and a new weapon we have. Careful you must be, Master Plo. Sense danger I do.”

Nobody really knew what to think about Yoda. At least, nobody on the opposite side of the conflict. There was a certain level of care, but they were still being locked out of important discussions and having to rely on Depa and Adi to fill the gaps. It was neither functional nor sustainable.

“Yes, Master Yoda. Is it possible for us to have any form of backup or support? Given the nature of these reports, I believe caution is the best way to proceed.” And the tension dropped somewhat with that request, the Force easing as well, fascinating.

“We’ll contact the 327th. The 212th left Corellia with orders to give them support on the Harrian-Rimma Merge, but we’ll see if they can be redirected without hurting the 327th’s efforts.” Mace turned to someone outside the comm.

“May the Force be with you, Master Plo.” Ki-Adi nodded before the comm turned off.

Plo contemplated the stilted feeling of the conversation for a long minute as he made his way back to the viewport. The easing of the Force at the potential for some sort of backup was telling, but it was more of a concern that Plo was missing something important because of the conflict within the Council. Yoda’s warning added another dimension to the already tense sensation of the Force and the tightening in Plo’s chest. Whatever he felt, it was a distant second to his duty. So march forward into the trap he would, with the 104th alongside.

///

How had Wolffe wound up in the position where he couldn’t trust his General?

How had he wound up in the position where he couldn’t trust that his General had the right information, even if the being himself could be trusted?

Jetiise may seem hard to read to everyone else, but Wolffe’s life (and by extension, his brothers’ lives) relied on his ability to read his General. He knew what it meant when General Koon was anything but at ease and relaxed, and it meant to get the kriff to cover. But it being directed at the Council. Well, that wasn’t necessarily new, but it hadn’t ever been that blatant before. And it also meant that Wolffe was even shakier on whether he could trust General Koon or not. And that was not something he could afford to doubt, one way or another.

Even Ben hadn’t been able to clear anything up, and Rex had been about as helpful as Ben when Wolffe had finally gotten him on the comm. The other Abiik-Kemir hadn’t been available to talk to for some reason, so Wolffe was still sitting on a load of questions that had nowhere to go.

It was hard _not_ to trust the General. Not at all as natural as it’d been to do that when they’d first been assigned. General Koon had gone out of his way to make sure that they knew that he was listening to them and that to him, at least, their lives were valuable. It was the same issue as with General Ti: could someone who was that concerned with their apparent comfort be cold enough to even know about the chips, let alone be responsible?

It was different for Cody.

Ever since what happened with Rex and their stint in the Temple before that, Cody had been harder, more cynical about the jetiise as a whole. And maybe he was right, it wasn’t like Wolffe trusted them all either. But the General was a different story. No matter what vod you asked, the General was always a different story.

Wolffe’s eyes caught on a dark blob out of the viewport.

“General Koon! We have visual contact.”

There was a flurry of activity where no less than four separate incidents happened with the scanners and it left Wolffe either wanting to kick their shebs or tear his hair out. But, finally, they got a solid scanner and visual lock on the huge karking cruiser they were chasing after. Which meant it was time to call the Jedi again.

Joy.

Wolffe was behind General Koon’s shoulder for the call, as per kriffing usual. He was happy to see Bly and Cody behind General Secura and Jinn’s respective shoulders, even if it was weird that General Jinn wasn’t bringing in Commander Tano.

“How goes the weapon hunt?” General Jinn asked, the Jedi version of a smile on his face.

“As well as can be expected. What are the chances you’ll be able to let them go, Knight Secura?” General Koon’s voice was warmer than it usually was during calls with the Council.

General Secura turned toward Bly and nodded a few seconds later.

“The situation here is important, but it’s not an urgent situation. We can spare them for however long this is going to take. Especially if they’ll be bringing the 104th with them after whatever mop-up you need to do.”

“Are you sure, Knight Secura?” General Windu asked, eyes on some sort of holodisplay that was just visible in the comm.

Wolffe wished he had his bucket on. Even if he wasn’t sure about the jetiise most of the time, belittling a General with that kind of tone in front of her Commander was just insulting on a professional level. That wasn’t even getting into the condescension from this same General on the call from earlier. Fox hadn’t been exaggerating if they were stooping to this kind of level now.

“Yes, Master Windu. Forward the 212th to the 104th and we’ll hold position here until we can rendezvous.” General Secura was still professional at least. Good, Bly deserved some of that.

“Thank you, Knight Secura. I will forward our reports to the Negotiator.”

“Good. With you all may the Force be.” General Yoda spoke up for the first time the whole call, and Wolffe was shocked it’d taken so long for him to say something.

“May the Force be with you.” General Koon signed off, shoulders looser than they’d been since they’d started chasing whatever this cruiser was.

It was quiet for a second before General Koon turned around.

“Commander Wolffe, make sure everyone is at their battle stations and check on the fighter crews, they should be on standby now.”

“Yes sir.”

There was still that same prickling in the back of Wolffe’s head that said this was going to go belly up fast. But at least they had backup on the way. That was better than nothing.

///

As soon as the Separatists noticed them, they started running, and Plo was more and more aware of how far they were going off of the beaten path with every second the chase continued. The men were all antsy, and the longer things went on, the antsier they got. The chase lasted far longer than Plo had expected when it had started and was far more tedious than most would probably think a space chase would be.

Which brought them to the point where they were almost close enough that Plo was concerned about Vultures. There was a definite Dark presence that Plo was, unfortunately, quite familiar with. Though the fact that Dooku had chosen not to mask his presence set Plo on edge. In the months since Geonosis, they had not managed to get a solid lead on Dooku when he did not want them to know he was there. The mounting tension in the Force was back, quickened by the men’s energy and emotions. What got past their shields at any rate.

Plo had just finished what strategies he could put together without knowing what make the cruiser was or what weapon they carried, when one of the scanner technicians sounded the alarm.

“Sir, we’ve got a massive spike of energy building from the enemy vessel.”

And the blade fell.

“Launch the fighters and tell them to get out of firing range, put all power into our shields and brace for impact.” There was no chance they could maneuver the Destroyers out of the way in time, and Plo had a feeling…

“Yes sir.” There was an echo along the bridge and Plo felt eyes on him again.

As soon as it fired, Plo saw the spinning disk of energy flying towards them. Ion canon. Suddenly all the reports were clear. He hoped the fighters were away, once it hit, there would be no way for them to get out. They would have a better chance at avoiding the turbos hiding behind the Destroyers, even if they had no shields.

“Get away from the equipment!”

The impact was silent, of course, but purple-blue arcs of electricity flared through everything. All the white noise that usually made up the most important parts of the Triumphant’s internal workings went dead.

“We’ve lost all power, General. No shields or engines.” Wolffe reported.

“Abandon ship; get to the lifepods and eject, now!”

Plo was the last one off the bridge, Wolffe only just ahead of him. Only one of the pods was still open by the time they made it. Wolffe dove in, Plo jumping after him. The pod ejected, there was a dip in the Force, like the trough behind a rock in a river.

A wave crashed over Plo’s shields and he felt himself stagger into one of the seats, hands clenching, the pressure a physical thing like g-force when he was flying. His shields were pulled as tight as they would go, and still the death clogged his lungs and if he hadn’t been able to feel it, he would’ve thought he’d lost his mask.

He let himself have one breath, two before he straightened up, pulling himself behind his shields. There were potentially fighters out there. There were three men in the pod who were still alive, at least.

“Wolffe!”

Plo turned just in time to see Wolffe collapse into the chair behind him, face incredibly pale, pain etched in every line. His shields were completely destroyed, knocked in from the force of the wave that had just struck them. And Plo could see him for the first time. And it was a wonder, a true wonder how well those shields had been built, how strongly and securely they’d been constructed to contain the presence Plo felt now. Qui-Gon not realizing Rex was Sensitive made a sudden sense. What little Shaak had discovered about the process used to train the men and make them into soldiers left little room for an ‘aberration’ such as this.

To hide was to live, even if they did it subconsciously, building durasteel walls and crushing themselves into their cores until their ‘eyes’ were completely darkened to the world they were meant to see.

All this while that choking, poisonous fog was rolling through the Force still. This was an emergency, and they would need Wolffe to at least be able to move on his own power. Plo reached out once more, taking in light with air and gathering the mists around him, feeling through his own shields before he gathered cloud after cloud, layering them around Wolffe until his presence was dimmed again. After one last push for them to remain in place Plo relaxed, opening his eyes and looking out the viewport at the debris that remained of the fleet.

///

Everything was too far away. Wolffe knew that his shields were completely gone and that General Koon had done something, but he felt like he’d just been electrocuted. He’d felt them _die_ and that wasn’t-

The face Rex made when Wolffe said the chips felt wrong suddenly made sense. The weird questions too. Why hadn’t the utreekov said anything! Not that it would’ve done shavit about _this_ but that would’ve been nice to know. Wolffe was going to kill him the next time he saw him. He was going to stun him, and help Cody space him. Utreekov shabuir!

At least Wolffe could kind of see straight.

He looked out the viewport at the debris and his stomach twisted. There weren’t even enough of them left to remember all of their names, to say all their names. Some of them hadn’t even had names yet.

He turned back to the inside of the pod. He may have felt like osik, but the four of them were still alive, there were still other pods out there, and some of the fighters had launched before the Destroyers had been taken down. There were things to do, and Wolffe was going to do them, haar’chak. Psychic shock or whatever Force shavit was going on be damned.

Boost had moved closer while Wolffe hadn’t been looking.

“Jate?” The scar stood out, harsh and red above Boost’s ear.

Wolffe lifted his head. “Jate.”

Boost nodded and Wolffe saw the quick flick of a hand sign to Sinker. General Koon was still looking at the cruiser. Wolffe turned back to the console and started to work, angry at the tremors that shook his hands and wracked through his body like he had Corellian Fever. Everything was dead but the backup launching system. Of course it was.

“General, the power grid is burned out. No engines, no comms, and, no life support refresh.”

Boost and Sinker had sat across from Wolffe while he was working and he saw the hopelessness on Sinker’s face. Everything felt weirdly oversensitive and detached at the same time, and ka’ra this was kriffing annoying, how did Rex deal with this Bantha osik all the time?

“Great, so we’ll just hold our breath.” Sinker scowled, staring at his helmet.

Boost looked at Wolffe, something that was trying to be hope in his eyes. “The 212th is coming, right?”

General Plo drew up to full height. “We must get the power working as soon as possible. We have to be able to warn the 212th before they fly into the same trap we did.”

///

Plo was feeling for Dooku’s signature while Boost and Sinker worked on the power grid. Wolffe was stable for the moment, but what Plo had done was a stopgap measure and the longer Wolffe was exposed to the constant barrage of the pain that was seeping into the Force, the more likely he would have some sort of complication. His previous shields had been strong enough to stand up to the damage past combat had done. But most of the 104th dying in close proximity was another matter entirely.

Even Plo was struggling, both personally and within the Force. He clung to the Light, wrapping it around himself and strengthening his own shields. It still felt like he was breathing the fear and the anger, though some of that was Boost, Sinker, and Wolffe’s. They couldn’t help their feelings, and one did not have to be Sensitive to struggle with what had just happened. But the close proximity was testing Plo’s shields, which were already strained by the strength of the test they had just endured.

The cruiser was far enough away that Dooku’s signature was blurry and indistinct through the haze of everything else that lay in its wake.

Plo was so focused on the outside that he almost missed the slow, small movement outside. He shifted, looking for the flash he’d seen again. And there! A fighter had enough of a backup power system to move! Plo could feel them now that he knew where to search, two bright, distant, lively lights in the Dark sea that had just been created.

“There is a fighter out there.”

And all eyes were on the viewport, something that felt wonderfully like hope warming the Force inside their pod.

“Can you get their attention, General?” Boost asked, eyes alight.

“We shall see.”

The fighter was moving very slowly, and they were sticking to the debris, moving along the paths of the floating chunks of the Destroyers. Plo reached out and _pushed_ on one of the pieces of debris floating past the viewport, moving it in the opposite direction it had been drifting in. He moved another one the same way and kept his eyes on the fighter. The second they saw the pod, the fighter started to move toward them, keeping to the same, slow leapfrogging pattern.

“I think I might be able to get the comm working soon. Just give me a couple more minutes,” said Sinker, hard determination lining his face.

Boost followed him back, taking one last, long look at the fighter making its way to them.

///

“We got it!” Boost yelled, startling Wolffe out of the trance he’d somehow managed to slip into.

The comm was glowing and Wolffe could already tell the signal was weak, but it didn’t matter. They had the comm, and the fighter was more than close enough to hear them.

“This is pod 1976, can you hear us fighter? Repeat, are you receiving us, fighter?” Wolffe’s voice was steady, anyway. Steadier than his hands were at any rate.

There was a pause, everyone watching the viewport as the fighter got closer.

“Pod 1976, this is Red Eight, we are receiving. Is General Koon with you?”

General Koon took Wolffe’s place at the console. “I’m here, Red Eight, what do you have to report.”

There was a slightly longer pause and Wolffe could hear the sighs of relief from where he was sitting.

“Red Squadron survived the initial blast, but we’ve lost contact with Leader, Three, and Seven. They said something about droid hunters before we lost contact. And sir-“ the vod hesitated, “Sir, we found a pod that was broken open. All of the men inside were dead and we saw something that looked like the outside of the pod was held in place around the viewport.”

It was their turn to pause, and Wolffe’s stomach was twisting again. Of course. That’s why there were no survivors. Stupid, kriffing stupid not to think of that. Too late now.

“Red Eight, do you have contact with anyone else?” Wolffe asked, bracing himself for the worst.

“We have contact with most of Green and Gray Squadrons and half of Orange. Last count, we had around ten pods. We’re leaving a fighter stationed with every one we’ve found so far. Green, Gray, and Orange leaders are still alive, and they’re coordinating. Would you like the channel?”

“Yes.” That was better than Wolffe thought they were going to get from what they’d just been through. Even better, last Wolffe heard, all of the brothers in Red, Green, Gray, and Orange were clear too.

“Stand by.”

After a few seconds, the familiar sound of Fighter chatter filled the pod.

Wolffe moved off the comm and General Koon took his place.

“This is General Plo Koon in pod 1976; everyone on this channel call in.”

Complete silence fell and Wolffe almost felt good enough to laugh, and he heard Boost and Sinker snickering behind him. As soon as roll was through, General Koon stated coordinating the fighters for the search.

There was no telling how much longer it would take for the 212th to get there, or if they would even make it past the cruiser. They’d be coming out of the jump off of the Shipwright Tributary, which meant they might come out far enough that a fighter-

“General Koon, we should send a fighter to intercept the 212th.”

General Koon paused before he nodded and went back to the comm. “Leaders, we need someone to intercept the 212th. By the time they are in our comm range, it will be too late. Is there anybody capable of avoiding detection long enough to make it to the drop point?”

There was a buzz of chatter between the four of them (Red Two was good, Wolffe had to make sure he kept the Leader position) and finally, Green Leader answered.

“Gray Four and Orange Three can do it, sir. They’ve got the best records for that kind of job.”

“Send them out as fast as you can, we don’t know when they’ll arrive, and it is imperative that they are warned before they get hit by the ion canon.”

“Yes sir.”

The tension in Wolffe’s shoulders eased as rescue got more concrete. But this just made it more confusing. It was clear that General Koon was very concerned about them, taking all the caution he could and being genuinely happy when they heard about another pod being found with the brothers still alive inside. He was doing what he always did: listening to them and taking their suggestions. He also hadn’t said anything about The Thing that Wolffe had no room to think about. He’d even done something to make sure that Wolffe could still function. And that was the thing that made him want to trust the General again more than anything.

But General Ti knew about that vod Cody mentioned; and everyone knew that General Ti was supposedly one of the really good jetiise. There were others, like General Secura, that were less suspicious. But anyone on the Council had to be suspect no matter how well they treated the vode on the surface.

“General Koon.” Tart’s voice was quiet from Red Eight and Wolffe’s eyes snapped to the viewport.

Shavit.

“We have visual contact with the hunters, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Di’kute-Idiots  
> Hut’uun-Coward  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Shebs-Behind  
> Utreekov-Idiot/Emptyhead  
> Shabuir-Extreme insult  
> Haar’chak-Damn it  
> Jate-Good  
> Ka’ra-Stars  
> Osik-Shit
> 
> It was time. The Malevolence had to appear at some point.


	20. Run With the Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 212th comes to the rescue

Hyperspace was streaking by and Cody was standing at the holodisplay on the Negotiator’s bridge, staring at the map that showed the 104th’s last known location. There was a pit in Cody’s stomach. General Jinn was nowhere to be found, but Commander Tano had been popping up on the bridge more and more often to ask some version of ‘are we there yet?’ ever since the Triumphant had gone dark. She was there again and Cody held back a sigh. He was as nervous as she was, but Commander Tano was still a shiny (even though she was a Jedi). She didn’t know to keep that to herself, and her nerves were making the bridge crew nervous.

“What’s going on Cody?” And the anxiety in her voice made Cody feel like he was talking to a scared vod’ika, which was the opposite of how a command chain was supposed to work.

Haar’chak, where was General Jinn and why wasn’t he helping her with this?

“Nothing to report, Commander Tano. We are due to arrive in the Abregado system in twenty minutes; no further contact has been received from the 104th.”

Her face fell and it made something twist deep in Cody’s chest. She’d proven she was capable of learning to survive on Christophsis. But at what cost?

“Okay; thanks, Cody.”

He wasn’t about to let her go off by herself again. At least he could keep an eye on her while she was on the bridge and make sure that she wasn’t just wandering aimlessly around the ship or teaching the shinies to climb around the air vents or something like that.

“It might be good to have a ranking officer on the comms, sir. Just in case.”

The Commander perked up. “Okay, I can do that!”

The brothers on the comms station scooted out of the way as she bounded over and Cody nodded minutely at them. They just had to make sure to keep her busy until they got there. No sense wasting energy worrying, even if that was exactly what Cody was doing too.

///

Red Eight hadn’t moved yet, and they all hung suspended in time while the droids picked through the wreckage around them. Plo knew they would go for the fighter first. Even without weapons, a Y-Wing was a bigger threat than a lifepod. If only for the fact that they could still maneuver. The spell broke as a piece of Destroyer drifted between them and the droids.

“Red Eight, get lost. Hide behind one of the bigger pieces of debris out there. You’re going to draw fire in that thing.” Wolffe ordered.

“We’ve been ordered to defend General Koon at all costs, Commander.”

“Which you’re not going to do by bringing them down on our heads. You have no guns, no bombs, and barely enough shields to take one hit, forget whatever those droids have to throw at you. Stand. Down, now.”

Plo winced at the sharp spike of discomfort in the Force and Wolffe slumped in time. The shields Plo had given him were starting to fail. Plo gathered more of the fog and flooded the pod with as much peace as he could manage. His own shields were beginning to dissipate under the strain, the mists evaporating under the constant bombardment.

The Force was still warning of danger. But Wolffe was quite correct, without guns, the most Eight could do was ram the droids’ ship, and their shields would not stand up to that kind of attack.

“General Koon?” Tart asked.

It was a good sign that Wolffe had enough energy to look irritated.

“Follow Commander Wolffe’s orders, Red Eight. We will find a way to drive them off.”

“Yes, sir.” Tart sounded uncertain, but he followed the order, the fighter disappearing from their viewport.

“Sir, if we destroy that ship, they’ll start scanning for survivors.” Sinker pointed out, echoing Plo’s own thoughts.

“We can’t just let them keep killing our brothers!”

“Of course not, I’m just saying-“

“Both of you shut up and let the General speak.” Wolffe cut them off flatly.

Plo took a second of the silence to pull his thoughts together. “We know that the droids do not adapt to surprises well. They are already aware that there are functional fighters out there. However, they are not aware that I am here. The best option is to force them to have to continuously adapt. Change the environment and the conditions and try to overwhelm their ability to process stimuli. That would leave their ship broadcasting a signal while they try to deal with us.”

“All due respect, General Koon, but we don’t have anything to do that with. We don’t even have boosters anymore.” Sinker down looked at the wires scattered around him hopelessly.

“With the Force, anything is possible, sergeant. Now, we must be quick about this. Think of the most nonsensical things we are capable of under these circumstances. Things that you know interrupt the droids’ capability to process properly.”

“The B1s can’t really deal with any of your abilities, General. Even just you throwing stuff at them confuses them if they can’t see you,” Boost said, Sinker and Wolffe nodding alongside.

“Indeed. We can use that then. I have noticed that they do not adapt well to situations that force them to operate without clear orders. We cannot cut them off from the cruiser, and we should endeavor to disguise my presence as long as possible in order to avoid drawing any unwanted attention. However, it seems from the pattern of disappearances of both the fighters and the other pods,” something cold was in Plo’s chest, “that they are operating somewhat independently with basic orders and programming. Easily overwhelmed under the right circumstances.”

“Our blasters are still working and our armor’ll still seal. I mean, Wolffe can’t go outside. But we could, you know, make it look like there’s fire somewhere else. Send them off on a wild Hillindor chase.” Boost was halfway to his helmet before he got the first sentence out of his mouth.

“Coordinate with the rest to make sure we do not send them towards any other survivors.”

“Already on it, sir.” Wolffe turned back to the comm.

Sinker glared at Boost before putting his hemet on. “I still don’t understand how we’re going to get anywhere that doesn’t look like we just came out of this pile of junk.”

“That’s where the General comes in.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s-” Sinker shook his head and Plo could almost see the scowl.

To be fair, Plo had not thought that was how this particular plan was going to be executed when Boost had suggested it.

Wolffe turned around again. “The environmental shields are compromised. Once you go out, you might not be able to come back in.You have one shot to get them off our backs like this or they’re going to see us.”

Plo saw Boost and Sinker move as Wolffe pressed a few buttons on the console.

“We will do as we must, then.”

“You’re going outside, General?” Boost’s voice was incredulous, and the leaks past his shields were much the same.

“It is the only way to have the control necessary for a maneuver such as this. The Force has been greatly unsettled by what has happened. I do not have the accuracy I would normally without being able to see what I am doing visually. I can withstand the vacuum for a brief time.”

“What-what’ll happen to Wolffe if you…” Boost looked at Wolffe again, the Commander’s face settling into a hard scowl as soon as he asked the question.

“He will survive. Such a small increase in distance will not affect what is already in place, nor will my death, should the worst happen.” Plo took a breath to settle himself in the upheaval that raged within and without his shields.

“I’ll be fine, di’kut. Do what you have to do.” And it was truly a sign of how tired the Commander was getting if he used Mando’a in front of Plo.

Boost nodded and the three of them prepared to go outside.

///

As soon as the lock sealed, Wolffe slumped against the console. Staying awake was exhausting and he could feel the weight of everything bearing down on his shoulders, that wave of _everything_ just past what little protection he had.

“They haven’t seen us yet. We’re good. Do you still read, Red Eight?”

“We’ve got you, 1976.”

“We are go.”

They were behind the pod, and Wolffe was mad that he knew exactly where they were. Ka’ra he couldn’t stop shivering and that was going to be a problem. He was too aware that they’d lost some air when the lock had opened and that if they managed to come back inside, they were going to lose more air. He was also aware that he was breathing faster, which meant using more air that he could really afford to. General Koon would be fine, Boost and Sinker had enough air to last until the 212th got there, but Wolffe wasn’t going to be able to last if the air ran out.

It was debatable he’d be able to last anyway. He may have been able to get Boost to move, but Wolffe knew he was in trouble. He was having more and more trouble thinking and just moving across the pod felt like running a marathon. He didn’t have enough room to build his shields back up again, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do that where he was anyway.He hadn’t seen Force shock before; but this felt like what the medics had been whispering about. And shock of any kind could be deadly without any medical attention. _Breathing_ was getting hard, and that wasn’t right. Even better, he was in a pod without medics with barely any power and a jetii who didn’t have any healing abilities.

Wolffe was going to murder Rex the next time he saw him.

He didn’t think he’d wind up dead, but he’d wind up helpless. That was as good as dead in a situation like this, especially with everyone else outside and tinnies coming to kill them.

“They’re moving towards Boost. Sinker, go.”

A flash of blue went off in the far corner of the viewport and Wolffe ducked to watch, bracing himself against the transparisteel as the world spun around him. After a few minutes that felt more like hours, the droids’ ship went by and Wolffe detachedly felt himself twitch as it passed. The thing looked like a giant claw and there were B1s crawling all over it like wasps. He could _feel_ the death on it. His vision blurred and Wolffe had to work a lot harder to shake it off than he was used to. It was getting worse.

“They just passed by heading for Sinker. Whatever you’re going to do, do it now,” Wolffe said, even managing to make it sound half-way like an order. Sitting felt really good. Sleeping sounded like it would feel even better.

That was a great way to die.

“Are you ready, Boost?” General Plo’s voice just reminded Wolffe of all the questions he’d just managed to forget about. At this point, he didn’t really have a choice but to trust that the General wasn’t going to do anything to get him decommissioned. But that question about how involved he was with the chips still needed answering.

“Yes sir.” Boost had no idea, and neither did Sinker; they knew Wolffe didn’t trust General Koon as much anymore, but not why. From what Wolffe knew, most of the brothers in the 104th that had known why were dead.

That made him feel like those weird new shields were cracking and he looped through the cycle again.

///

They reverted to normal space with the wonderful sound of a proximity alarm blaring in their ears.

“What’s there out there?” General Jinn and Commander Tano were practically on top of the poor vod manning the scanner readout.

“Looks like fighters, sir. Two of ours.”

“We have them, General, they’re asking for you or Commander Cody.”

Cody was already on his way to comms, and General Jinn still managed to get there ahead of him. He saw Commander Tano fidgeting right behind the General and moved to make a little more room for her. She gave him a very tense smile that just reminded Cody how much of a shiny she still was, despite how well she’d done so far.

“This is General Jinn, what’s your report, fighters?”

“Orange Three and Gray Four of the 104th, sir. General Koon ordered us to intercept and warn you that the enemy vessel has a ion canon capable of interrupting all ships systems. He’d advised that you not approach directly and stay out of scanner range. The weapon is massive sir. All three of our cruisers were destroyed and we’ve lost most of the battalion.”

Cody’s heart stopped beating and his chest was made of rocks again. An entire battalion, the entire 104th, decimated.It was Christophsis all over again.

“How many survivors?” General Jinn asked.

Cody motioned to one of the other brothers on the bridge to scramble the pilots.

“Eleven pods and twenty-eight fighters last count, sir. Our comms are too weak to connect over this distance.” Orange Three’s voice was grim.

“How many men?”

“One hundred and two reported, sir.”

Less than a fifth; kriff, less than a fifth.

“Command?”

“General Koon, Commander Wolffe, and Major Trace are still alive. Everyone else is assumed dead.”

A very small amount of the block of rock that was Cody’s chest chipped away. Commander Tano let out a tiny breath and even General Jinn seemed less tense. Right, General Koon was one of General Jinn’s close friends. How had he managed to forget that?

“Good. Anything else to report, Orange Three?”

“Our ships are compromised, General. We have no guns, minimal engines and shields, weak comms, and our life support refresh is dying.”

“Come on board and we’ll see what we can do, Orange Three.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Master?”

“Go down with Commander Cody, Ahsoka. I’ll coordinate those ships you got moving, Commander Cody. I want both of you running this on the ground.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But Master-“

“I don’t want any fighters out there until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing without outside of an ion canon, Ahsoka.” General Jinn cut her off.

For a second, it looked like Commander Tano was going to argue, but then, she slumped. “Yes, Master.”

“Help Cody, alright, padawan?”

“Yes, Master Qui-Gon.”

“Thank you, Ahsoka.”

The entire bridge looked as uncomfortable as Cody felt, but off they both went to the hangar.

Orange Three and Gray Four were already inside by the time they got there and Cody saw the pilots climbing out. Commander Tano gasped at the damage on their ships, but Cody had been expecting worse. Three cruisers fried? It was a shock fighters were even functional at all.

“Commanders.” One of the pilots saluted as soon as he was on the ground.

“What’s your name?” Cody wasn’t yelling ‘hey you’ across the hangar if he didn’t have to.

“Choke, sir,” the vod said as he pulled off his helmet.

Cody caught the patch of hair just starting to regrow over the removal scar. That was something, anyway.

“Right, and Gray Four?”

“Glass.”

“You two get to the bridge and make a full report to General Jinn. Give the channel to the comms center and see of they can get in contact with the survivors.”

“Yes sir.”

Choke and Glass sped to the turbolift and Cody felt Ahsoka’s eyes on him.

Then, it was like her strings had been cut, she went down, and Cody barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

“Sir, are you alright?” Cody helped her sit, trying to get her out of the traffic.

Commander Tano’s eyes were worryingly blurry and distant and she was clutching Cody’s arms hard enough to push the plastoid almost through his blacks. She shook her head like she was trying to get something out of it and took a deep breath before her grip loosened the tiniest bit. She clenched her hands a few times, eyes slowly getting sharper before she leaned back and let go of Cody’ arms.

“Sorry.” Her voice was weak and Cody sent a comm for Coric to get to the hanger as fast as possible.

“I just. I felt what happened to Torrent, but. This. They all just _died_ at once. Oh Force. And from this far away.” Her eyes went distant again and Cody waved a few of the hangar crew back. From what he remembered, having too many people close would make this worse. Probably. Where was Stacks when Cody needed him?

Cody resolutely ignored the new sinking feeling in his gut.

General Jinn swept into the hanger alongside Coric and he went straight for Commander Tano, nodding at Cody as he helped her up and drew her away. Coric followed and the vod in charge of the hanger came up to Cody as the three of them went to the only unoccupied corner in the whole bay.

“What’s going on?”

“With the General, Jedi business. For us, a rescue operation.” If only they still had that stealth ship on board.

“What’re your orders?”

“Scramble the best pilots you have if they’re not already flying and rescue the survivors in the debris field. Leapfrog, stick to the separate pieces of debris once you’re in the field and approach one at a time as quietly as you can. Don’t do _anything_ that will stick out on scanners. Right now, as far as the 104th knows, they’re not looking for anyone, but that won’t mean anything if they see you out their viewports, got it?”

“Yes sir.”

“The lifepods are the priority, but coordinate with the 104th fighters to search the rest of the field that they haven’t gotten to yet.”

“Yes sir.”

He headed off, already shouting orders into his comm and Cody tried to look busy and not worried. Busy and not worried. One of those things was true.

///

“The 212th made contact, sir. They’re coming.”

The relief was enough to give Plo the strength to move another piece of debris. He couldn’t sense Qui-Gon or Ahsoka, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. He could hardly even sense Dooku anymore. The exhaustion was clear in Wolffe’s voice and that posed an issue. There was no chance that Qui-Gon and Ahsoka wouldn’t sense Wolffe’s presence when they got close enough. Qui-Gon would keep back and would keep Ahsoka back as well. Even as far out as the drop point, over four hundred and fifty essentially simultaneous deaths was a heavy burden and a massive scar in the Force. For a Knight or Master who was prepared, it would be manageable, if highly uncomfortable and requiring extensive meditation after exposure. For a padawan, especially one as new as Ahsoka, it could crack their shields or even put them into shock.

Which brought it all back around to Wolffe, and as Plo watched the droids debate, again, about going another direction, he had to find a way to protect him. Qui-Gon and Ahsoka were safe. They wouldn’t do anything to Wolffe intentionally. But the Commander would also need some sort of Force healing attention, if only to get past the shock he was slowly but surely slipping into; and there inlaid the problem. Qui-Gon may just bring Wolffe to a healer regardless of the inherent risk; and that would put Wolffe in danger.

More danger than he was in at present, whatever the appearance on the surface may have suggested.

“Do we have contact with them directly, Commander?”

“With the leader, yeah.”

“Pass on our situation if you haven’t already and tell them to watch their step.”

“Already done, General.”

“Good.” Plo carefully pulled Boost back to the pod.

“Contact Tart and tell him to go with the closest 212th ship.”

Wolffe paused. “Yes, sir.”

Plo pulled Sinker back to the pod as well and they made their way down to the lock.

“We’re outside, Commander. Can you let us in before we freeze to death?” Boost banged on the door.

“Yeah, yeah, give me a second.”

A warning shot through the Force and Plo _pushed_ himself around.

The droids were staring right at them.

“Do not open the door, Commander. Keep that air lock shut.”

“Yes sir.” The tremors had spread to Wolffe’s voice and the shields Plo had built were almost completely burned away.

The ship was slow and clunky; Plo already knew that, but he could sense the death that oozed from it as it drew closer. The droids were on their own channel, but he didn’t need to be able to hear them to know what they were about to attempt. His lightsaber was ignited and in his hands a breadth of a hair before the droids started firing on them. He saw blue and the droids scattered, taking cover behind the round bulk of their ship. The giant arms on the front of it were exactly the right size to grip a standard lifepod while they cut it open.

Plo was already tired from misdirecting them before and he could tell the Boost and Sinker were getting tired as well, their dwindling air supply taking its toll. Still, he reflected their fire and tried to keep their attention on him. There was a chance that they hadn’t seen Wolffe yet, and that meant they had no reason to try and cut the pod open. They had to keep it that way for the sakes of both the Commander and the comm. Red Eight would already be gone if they’d done as Plo had ordered.

The strain was dissipating the last of Plo’s shields and the weight of the sea was almost too much to bear; but he had no choice but to bear it. Pulling the Light around him, he got ready for one more strain.

“Ready, Boost?”

“Yes sir!”

The push was less precise than Plo would’ve liked, but Boost made it unharmed and unshaken and started firing on the droids behind the ship. They scattered, Sinker picking off the ones Plo’s reflected fire didn’t reach. Sinker hissed over the comm, but Plo couldn’t sense anything beyond the whirlpool he was entrenched in, the ocean flooding his senses and clogging his lungs, blinding him in the Force until all he could feel was the barest suggestion of what was around him.

Finally, he heard Boost’s victory whoop and he knew the droids were gone.

“Commander Wolffe, if you could open the door, we would very much appreciate it.”

The comm was silent.

“Hey Wolffe, you alive in there?” Boost’s tone was light, but Plo knew what he sounded like when he was nervous by then.

That wasn’t the problem; in fact, Plo was quite certain what the problem was.

“I can’t open the door. The environmental shields are completely dead. If I open them, we’ll lose all the air and heat we have left.” There was the flatness of someone on the barest edge of control to Wolffe’s voice.

“Kriff.”

“Quite apt, Sergeant.” Plo rested on the lifepod, the solidity of the metal under his back helping ground him to himself.

They were all silent as the debris drifted around them, Plo doing his best to keep the droids’ ship from floating into anything. Perhaps as long as the beacon was transmitting, they would have enough time to get everyone to the 212th’s before the Malevolence’s crew realized anything was wrong.

In the sea of death Plo found himself submerged in, it was a pleasant surprise how at peace he still was at the potential of his own passing. Not resignation, but ease. He had lived long and lived well. The only thing he was at all concerned about was what remained of the 104th; but if he knew Qui-Gon at all, the man would do everything he could to ensure they were protected.

“General.” Sinker brought him out of his reverie and he realized that he’d gained enough clarity to sense the anxiety from Wolffe and Boost, and could even tell who was who again with relative ease.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“There’s something I, we, have to know.”

“Don’t you kriffing dare, sergeant. That’s an order.” Wolffe snapped over the comm.

“Kriff’s sake, Wolffe. We’re going to die out here, and I’m not dying without hearing this for myself. What’re you going to do, report me?” Sinker snapped.

Wolffe’s entire presence recoiled, and a deep seated exhaustion and struggle bled into the Force past what was left of the makeshift shields. Plo took the guilt and melded it with all the other feelings he was holding at bay for the moment. The Force had prodded him so strongly that there was not a single chance he could look away from whatever was about to happen. For good or or ill.

“What is it, Sinker?” Plo asked, turning toward the two men across the door.

Sinker looked back at Boost who shrugged noncommittally while Wolffe made some sort of snarling noise over the comm.

“When Wolffe was on Tatooine, Rex told him about a chip, some sort of thing the Kaminoans put in our heads that according to Silas Abiik-Kemir looked like some kind of slaver chip. When Wolffe got back to the Pack, he got a bunch of us scanned, and we all had one. Every single brother has one just wired into our heads. We’ve been taking them out ever since. We’d just gotten into Lupus when, well. We know that you ordered us and paid for us. So I have to ask, sir. Did you know about those things? Did you know about the chips in our heads?”

The entire galaxy spun.

Chips.

_Chips_.

Chips like those of the Hutts and Zygerrians, or chips like something that could’ve been used on Ben to create Hibir?

_Chips!_

Good Force, the tension and suspicion. All of the mysterious head injuries and paperwork that seemed to just disappear in Wolffe’s files. The bitterness, the anger, the change.

_The change!_

That had been the shift he’d sensed in Canidae and Canis. That had been the suspicion from Wolffe and the men. That had been Wolffe’s fear after his shields had collapsed. And Plo ached with guilt. He should have seen something, but now was not the time for such thoughts.

“I can assure you, Sinker, that had I known about such a violation to your beings, I would’ve joined the Commander in having them removed as quickly as possible.”

There was a stark silence before Wolffe broke in sounding shell shocked.

“He’s telling the truth.”

///

A Red Eight had come in with the last transports with the exact coordinates of Wolffe and General Koon’s lifepod. The brothers who had been jammed inside had been freaking out and Cody had barely managed to get that they were in trouble and that the tinnies had found them out of the blabber.

Cody had notified General Jinn while Commander Tano had ordered Blue Squadron after them. It was a matter of time at that point, no reason to hide if the droids were cut off. And they would be cut off, Cody held onto that. At any rate, that was the best window of opportunity they had to get some sort of tracker in place before their luck ran out.

Ships kept coming in and the 212th’s kept going out for more. No more pods or fighters had been found, at least not with anyone still alive inside. Cody had expected that, the longer it took for them to get through everything, but he had to check anyway.

Finally, he heard the shouts that meant 1976 was being brought in and he saw Commander Tano dart for General Koon in an orange and blue blur. There were two brothers next to him with tired faces and removal scars above their ears. Wolffe was on the floor with an ox-mask on his face and more pain in his eyes than he’d let himself show since they’d all been cadets. Cody dimly heard Commander Tano saying something to General Koon as he reported their safe return to General Jinn, but there was something wrong with Wolffe. He didn’t know what it was, but he could see it.

Cody went in and the other brothers backed off, the one with gray-white hair glaring suspiciously at him. So they’d be listening in. That was fine. Cody could work with that. His vod was more important than his pride.

Wolffe’s eyes were glazed over just like-

No. There was no chance. That was so rare, even for nat-borns; how was it possible?

“Wolffe?”

His eyes snapped to focus before his name was even all the way out of Cody’s mouth, and the pain in them.

“I felt it, Cod’ika. It’s all out there, and I had no idea. You tell our vod’ika that he owes me. He owes me a _kriffing_ explanation.”

Cody nodded, checking his HUD for General Jinn. However close the Commander was, he could tell she wasn’t paying attention to anything. At least for that moment. She got hyper focused on things like that. When everything was settled, he’d have to talk to her and see what that meant for them. Then, though, all Cody could do was get the rest of the 104th together and help General Jinn figure out how to destroy that damned monstrosity that’d slaughtered them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Vod’ika-Younger Sibling  
> Haar’chak-Damn it  
> Manda-Heaven  
> Di’kut-Idiot  
> Jetii-Jedi


	21. Sensitivity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the Malevolence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case any of you didn't get an email, I put up a new chapter last week!

Ahsoka was in the vent near the medbay. Actually, she was in the vent right above the beds they used for the isolated patients. She could see Commander Wolffe from where she was sitting. They’d brought him in with Master Plo and rushed him off after some sort of talk with Cody she’d missed. She’d been relieved of duty when 1976 had been brought aboard; normally, she would’ve stuck to Master Plo, but she’d sensed someone new. Someone in a lot of pain and strong enough to broadcast it through flimsi-thin shields.

It’d taken her an embarrassing amount of time to figure out that it was Commander Wolffe. But once she had, she hadn’t known what to do about that. From what little shields he had left, Master Plo already knew about him.

So what the kriff was she supposed to do?

That led to her watching him from the vent and trying to figure out whether she should say something or not. If it was Stacks, Waxer, Boil, Cody, literally anybody from the 212th she would’ve just barged in and asked after sitting around Corellia for however long. But Commander Wolffe was kind of…prickly. And intimidating, not that she would’ve ever admitted that.

“I know you’re there, Commander.”

Ahsoka froze stock still at Wolffe’s voice. He didn’t look any different than normal, which meant he looked vaguely annoyed at everything. He wasn’t even looking at the grate and that, more than anything, just made the entire kriffed up situation sink in. There was no denying it. But if he knew she was there, then there was no point in hanging out in the air vent anymore. Aside from being kind of creepy, if she was being honest with herself, it was starting to get a little bit cramped.

She gently _pushed_ the grate out of place and dropped out of the vent before putting it back into place. Wolffe was still staring at the ceiling with the same vaguely annoyed expression. But Ahsoka could feel the layers of suspicion around him, his presence held in it like those mummy things in the museums they’d taken her clan to back in their crèche days. Just feeling it secondhand made her core ache in sympathy as she plopped into the seat next to his bed.

“You really shouldn’t hold it in like that.” The words slipped out before she could think about it and she felt her face turn burnt orange.

Wolffe’s eyes snapped over to her, and they felt a little bit like when Ejasa had been looking at her after they’d been exposed on Geonosis. He huffed something that was almost a laugh and shook his head.

“I’m fine with what I’ve got, Commander.”

Ahsoka winced at the tension in his voice, feeling echoes of the pain that was behind it.

“It’s hurting you. We’re far enough away that if you don’t stretch out, it’ll be worse for you than if you let go.”

He didn’t quite sigh, but it was really close.

“Commander, all due respect, but that’s not true right now.”

Had he not known?

Kriff, that was a fekking terrible way to find out.

Ahsoka bit her lips, and decided. She relaxed her shields a little bit, gathering the Light, the warmest, softest parts of it around and pulled them close. She felt like she was in the Room of a Thousand Fountains on a perfectly bright sunny day and the tension drained from her body. She breathed out and pushed out everything she’d gathered, feeling the ever-present cold of space fade.

When she opened her eyes, she could already see the difference. The lines of pain and tension were melting out of Wolffe even though the intense suspicion was still thickening the Force around him like jam. Ahsoka kept her smile to herself, feeling the tiny change in his signature. It was something, even if he was still prickly.

///

Plo had stayed on the bridge with Qui-Gon until they’d jumped back into the hyperlane. He needed to meditate quite badly. But before he did anything, he had to speak with Wolffe about everything, chips, shields, how to hide. He was more preoccupied than usual, having had to strengthen his shields far more than usual to get through the rest of the day. It was a sign that he needed to decompress that he hadn’t noticed the cloud of warmth and Light in the medbay until he was right on top of it.

Ahsoka was at Wolffe’s bedside, the Light she’d gathered out drawing out the pain and suffering that’d soaked into the Commander like poison from a wound. She was in a very light meditative trance to maintain it and her shields were thinner than usual. A risk, but Plo couldn’t help but be proud despite his worry for both of them. Of course, she would help, of course, even if it was a risk. She was still brave. It warmed Plo’s heart to see that the things she had been through hadn’t taken that away from her.

Wolffe snapped to attention in an instant, and Ahsoka snapped out of her trance with him. It didn’t dissipate the Light cloud around them, though; and that made the cracks in Plo’s shields far more manageable.

“Hi, Master Plo.”

Wolffe’s eyes widened at the casualness of the greeting before looking back at Plo.

“Are we moving, sir?” Wolffe was back to business, and Plo wasn’t entirely certain that was a good thing. It would have to be put aside for a time when he’d had enough sleep and meditation to have proper insight.

“Yes. Final counts were taken: one hundred and four men, including yourself.” If Plo hadn’t told him, Wolffe would’ve sought the answers out for himself and he wasn’t meant to leave that bed unless it was absolutely necessary.

Ahsoka didn’t make any noise, but the cloud started to dissipate and her shoulders curled.

Wolffe nodded, face blank. His signature told another story, some of the most intense grief Plo had ever felt behind a wall of duty and sacrifice. Still, there were other things that had to be discussed, and they were things that Plo wasn’t going to subject Ahsoka to before it could be helped.

“Ahsoka, I believe Qui-Gon is looking for you.”

Ahsoka jumped a little bit before ducking her head a little, embarrassment leaking through her shields.

“Okay, Master Plo. Bye, Wolffe.”

The Commander looked a bit shocked she’d said anything to him, but he nodded sharply to her.

“Thank you, Commander.”

Ahsoka smiled brightly before she walked out. Speaking of which, Plo was certain that Wolffe’s bed was supposed to be isolated. He would have to remind Qui-Gon about that particular habit.

Apparently misreading whatever expression was on Plo’s face, Wolffe explained:

“She got in through the air vents, sir. I have no idea why she was there or how.”

Of course; another thing the war had not yet changed. “Ah, well she has always been fond of sneaking around the Temple. A great deal of her success in that regard was because of her mastery of the Temple’s maintenance shaft and air vent systems.”

“Right. What do you need, General?”

It seemed Wolffe had as much patience for tact as Plo felt in the mood for at the moment.

“Before, I was aware of a change, but not the reason for it. I know enough to estimate when you began to remove the chips. Though I admit, I am at a loss as to why the other shift happened. Regardless of the personal reasons, I don’t wish to pry, but I cannot protect you or help you with something I know nothing about. So if it’s possible, I would like to hear whatever you’ve managed to find.”

Wolffe’s face went blank and he buried all his feelings behind a medley of other feelings. It was a complex technique. One that Plo knew most on the Council would see as a path to the Dark side, if not to the way of the Sith. But it was clearly adaptive, something Wolffe had learned to survive. Something done as reflexively as pulling his hand away form a hotplate. Another hole in the current Jedi philosophy and another sign that things were not nearly so clear cut. And that philosophy would see Wolffe and Rex and all their brothers who were like them treated the same as the Abiik-Kemirs.

It was unacceptable.

Apparently, Plo’s lack of effective shields had done something to convince Wolffe to speak. “I can’t tell you everything. There are people involved-whatever choices they made, I’m not going to expose them. I can’t, you understand, General?”

So, Rex was most likely involved, and most likely leaders of other battalions, legions, and corps as well.

“Of course.”

Wolffe eyed Plo, but continued. “The chips are in every brother we’ve gotten to so far. Every single one of us who’s been scanned’s had one. They’re above the right ear, small enough that they can’t be seen with anything but an atomic level brain scan. The official reason, which I can’t tell you how we found, is that it’s an aggression inhibitor. Helps make us more compliant. That last part’s true.” Wolffe scowled and something Dark and bitter seeped into the room alongside.

“When we sliced into them, we found out that there were hundreds of orders on them. Once they were triggered, yes like Hibir,” he said at whatever Plo had done, “we would be helpless. They could force us to do anything on those chips, and we’d have no choice but to comply. Nothing short of a miracle would stop it. Not the Force, not even hurting us. Knocking us out and removing it or killing us would be the only way to make us stop. And there were kill orders on there. Specifically for the Jedi. You can see why we’d want to take the kriffing things out.”

Wolffe was searching Plo’s face, but Plo was too occupied trying to keep his emotions under control to think about what he must’ve been projecting.

After a long moment, Wolffe nodded to himself. “Anyway. After we’d gotten the removal process up and running we got word, can’t say who from, that someone high up in the Senate was responsible for them. It was vague, but it was credible. And the same day, you had a meeting with Senator Amidala and with the Chancellor the day before.”

“Both of whom are high ranking members of the Republic Senate.” Plo finished for him.

The mists of the Force were churning and Plo’s chest was tight, twisting right alongside with more emotions all together than he even thought he had room to experience.

Rage at just how many indignities these men had suffered and that someone _dared_ to try attack Plo’s family in such a way.

Grief for the losses, for the chance at a freer life the 104th’s dead had never been able to take.

Pride for how well Wolffe had handled the situation, for how quickly they’d all been able to pull together and try to fix it.

Protectiveness for what little remained of the Pack and for Wolffe, who had been forced to discover something so vital in one of the worst possible ways.

Determination to find the culprit and drag them into the Light, kicking and screaming and fighting if need be.

And so much more, so, so much more, an entire storm cell that was battering what few shields Plo had managed to recover.

Plo breathed, he listened to the air, to the sound of the Negotiator’s engines, to Wolffe’s breathing, to the sounds of an active medbay. He took in the feeling of his mask, his goggles, his robes, the solid seat beneath him. He sank into the mists of the Force, flushing all of it into the Light and taking in the peace of it. The emotions still raged, and Plo still needed to meditate properly as soon as possible. But, for the moment, they were contained; and Plo was at as much peace as could be expected under the circumstances.

Plo opened his eyes and he saw the well contained curiosity and nervous suspicion in Wolffe’s eyes.

“That is a lot of information, of things that I hadn’t seen. I would like to give you an answer, answers. At the moment, I’m afraid I do not have the presence of mind to give you the kind of consideration that you all deserve. Especially for something so serious as this. If you can permit it, I would like to meditate on it after we finish this crisis with the Malevolence. I will have an answer for you by the end of the week at the latest. But it will most likely be sooner. I do not want to say something I cannot back up in practice in the interest of giving an immediate answer.”

It felt like a woefully inadequate response. But truthfully, Plo was too exhausted, too overwhelmed by the day’s events to think of anything remotely appropriate to say to what Wolffe had just told him.

Wolffe watched him, and Plo couldn’t figure out what the Commander was looking for. Apparently, he found it, because he nodded and relaxed into the bed, eyelids drooping and exhaustion overtaking his signature once more.

“Alright, General. But we’re going to hold you to that.”

///

Most of the people in the little conference room were supposed to be somewhere else. A nervous looking Sinker was next to Wolffe and Cody almost felt bad about the seating. Almost. They didn’t have enough time for him to have mercy about the massive security breach that’d just happened.

“We have less than half an hour to get through this before Stacks can’t cover anymore, so explain.” Cody went in.

Sinker glanced around them, shoulders back and hands flat on the table.

“I thought we were about to die and I wasn’t going to die without knowing if the General I was dying next to knew about those chips, sir.”

“You disobeyed a direct order, Sinker. Yes, we know we can trust that General Koon didn’t know about the chips now, but we don’t know about any of the other Jedi. Anybody else on the Council is still suspect. And in case you forgot, he’s friends with most of the beings on the Council. Including General Ti.” Wolffe snapped, reaching for his temple before he glared at his hand and put it back on the table like it had moved without asking him.

“How compromised are we?” Cody had other things to do that didn’t involve listening to pointless arguing.

“He knows about the chips and I told him that we suspected someone in the Senate. Don’t look at me like that, he would’ve figured it out the second we got back to Coruscant! Anyway, we can assume he knows about Rex from Tatooine and the Abiik-Kemirs before that. But he doesn’t know who else we suspect and he doesn’t know about that other thing you told us about. He also doesn’t know what was on the chips past the kill order for the Jedi.” Wolffe reported dully, reaching for his temple again.

“That’s.” Kriffed was what it was, kriffed. “Okay. We need to figure out how to get him to keep quiet about it. Did he say anything?”

“That he’d ‘get back to me’ once he’s had a chance to meditate. You know what that’s like.”

“I know we’re keeping Rex out of reach, but. He was the one who called out the conspiracy in the first place. Wouldn’t he be the best one to explain why we have to keep this quiet if General Koon already knows about him?” Bins asked.

Cody winced.

They hadn’t talked about that yet.

Wolffe’s face twisted and he beat Cody to answering by a fraction of a second. “The General doesn’t know about us starting to get brothers out. Rex may have practice shielding, but we don’t want to test that kind of thing before we even know the system works for sure. It’ll be a while before the first vod is secure enough to tell us anyway. Besides, even if they know about him, they don’t know we talk to him in the first place. It’s best if they don’t know where he is at any given time too, just in case someone like General Windu hears about it.”

And Cody dreaded the day they brought Ponds into it; he was going to be _devastated_.

“Right, but-‘

“Bottom line, Rex is still a secondary source. We want primary, we have to deal with Abiik-Kemir and we all know what it took for him to go to Christophsis. And that was without it being about a Force vision or some shavit like that. No. We can’t ask Rex. We have to find a way to get General Koon to keep quiet on our own.” Wolffe cut Bins off hand clenching on the table.

Okay. Okay. Cody could figure this out.

After a long, awkward pause with Wolffe audibly fuming from his seat, Cody had some semblance of a potential plan.

Maybe.

“Okay. Honesty has worked so far, right? So we be honest. I’m not saying we tell the General everything! Just enough to try and get him to see things from our way of thinking, right?”

Everyone’s eyes were narrowed, but it was the only way.

“He already knows we heard it from somewhere. He knows Rex is probably involved somehow given how the timing works out. He knows that we’ve been taking out the chips, but not the specifics about what’s on them. We need to take advantage of what he does know and get him to fill in the gaps about why he has to keep it quiet on his own without giving away too much of what else we know.”

“That is so unnecessarily complicated-“

“Do you have a better idea?” Cody glared across the table at Wolffe who just looked back tiredly.

Haar’chak.

“Could we even lead him like that? Jedi are supposed to be resistant to that sort of thing.” Bins pointed out.

“It hasn’t stopped them from missing the obvious before, has it?” And how bitter and jaded had Cody gotten to play with fire like that?

“But that was different-“

“Whatever else he is or isn’t, Rex isn’t different enough from us for us to just dismiss ourselves. Don’t act like the Force is the real reason he managed to do anything and don’t act like not being sensitive to that makes us any less capable than anyone else. We can’t afford to short ourselves. We’ll all die if we start acting like we’re helpless without a jetii.”

Really, when had Cody gotten so bitter?

“Besides, the Jedi are a lot weaker to stuff that’ll bounce right off of you.” Wolffe said, not being able to stop himself from rubbing his temples this time.

He really should’ve still been in bed; they had to wrap it up fast.

“Okay. We have until the Malevolence is dealt with to figure out how we’re going to do this. Wolffe, Stacks is going to come by the medbay and we’ll all figure out how to keep this contained. Together.”

“But what about everybody else?” Coric was the one to step in that time.

“The others were never as immediate of a concern as General Koon was. One crisis at a time.”

“But General Ti-“

“Will have to wait until we don’t a Seppie killing machine to deal with.”

///

Two hours of rest and light meditation had not been nearly as much as Plo would have liked, but it would have to suffice. He was in the briefing room with Qui-Gon, Ahsoka, Commander Cody, Major Trace, and two more of the 212th’s senior command who had been introduced as Captain Stacks and Oddball. Knight Secura and Commander Bly were conferenced in on a holodisplay. In the middle, a holo of the Malevolence floated above a map that showed the tracer the 212th’s fighters had planted following them along the Rimma towards the 327th’s chokehold.

“As you can see, the ion canon is massive. It completely incapacitated three Star Destroyers and most of the ships’ systems inside. The lifepods and fighters ranged from barely functional to essentially dead in space after launching. There isn’t currently any kind of shield on any of the ships we have that will mitigate the effects of the weapon. In addition, General Koon said that he sensed Count Dooku’s signature aboard, though it’s unlikely he’s still there.” Qui-Gon’s voice tripped slightly over Dooku’s name, but he was steady otherwise.

It was a thorough report.

But Plo could not stop thinking about what Wolffe had confided. It was shocking. The emotions it had brought on were still burning away in his chest for when he had the time to do a true deep meditation. But he had to finish the mission before he took stock in what promised to be a lengthy, painstaking process.

“Yes. They also sent out a team of droids to hunt for survivors. I suspect that they are planning to attempt to hit a high value target now that they have been exposed. Proof of their strength. Something to bring more of the galaxy to their side of the conflict. It will be as much about optics as it will be about the damage they can do to our infrastructure,” Plo said.

Knight Secura turned to Commader Bly for a few seconds, hands making motions too small to be picked up properly by the holocam.

“Intelligence picked up a rumor that the Separatists may be targeting the clones specifically. Either to damage production or recovery. There are a lot of places from here that they could use to do that. Theoretically, if they managed to get to the Triellus, they could get to Kamino; but at that point they’d pass too many high value targets for it to be worth it.” Knight Secura was looking off the holo at her own map. “Part of the problem is that most of the places that fit that description are kept on a need-to-know basis. So we might not even know it needs protecting until it’s too late.”

“I think out best option is to attack them first. They know too much to try and get past the choke. The 327th is bigger than the 212th and you know about the ion canon too. They’ll try to either get around you or outsmart you,” said Commander Cody, stepping up to the map.

“What do you recommend, Commander Cody?” Qui-Gon had moved closer alongside the man in question.

“We have to cut them off, ambush them somewhere they don’t expect. Any merge, they’re going to have to revert to normal space before they make the next jump. The best place to hit them would be at the joint between the Rimma and the Spine. I think the only reason Harrin-Rimma is being contested was to distract us. Now that we know, the Spine should be our first priority anyway.”

“So you’re saying that we need to make it look like we’re still sidetracked while setting up a trap for their trap.” Knight Secura clarified.

“Exactly. Whatever they’re aiming for, the Spine would be the best way to get to it.”

“I agree with Cody, sirs. This battle has been a little too easy so far. The 327th hasn’t had any major issues holding our place, and it seems kind of like they don’t actually care about breaking the chokehold.” Commander Bly chimed in, highlighting the choke on the map.

“Right. That still leaves the issue of being able to attack them without losing too many ships. If they can take down our shields and incapacitate our ships, then we need to figure out how to work around that.” Qui-Gon was staring at the slowly rotating holo of the Malevolence, a hand on his face.

“I believe fighters would be the smartest way to go about that. The ion canon takes a relatively long time to charge and is more of a blunt instrument than a surgical tool. A group of bombers could destroy the canon and leave the ship without anything but standard weaponry, which we already know we are capable of dealing with. It would also allow us a chance to capture their leader, which would be a boon.” It would not be worth the cost of most of the 104th’s lives, but it would be worth more than just the knowledge of the ion canon.

“If we could capture Grievous, we might be able to find out how they got so far into the Core in the first place as well.” Qui-Gon added. “How about it, Commander Cody?”

“I was about to suggest that, sir.”

“Alright. 212th Blue and Indigo Squadrons will take a flight of Y-Bombers escorted by-“

“The Gray Squadron is volunteering for duty, sir.” Trace cut Qui-Gon off.

Qui-Gon looked at him hesitantly and Plo felt the words bubble out of his mouth in a way they hadn’t since he had been a padawan. “I will take them myself, Qui-Gon. It would be best to have one of us on sight in case there are any, unforeseen, complications.”

If Dooku was still onboard, they would all be at even more risk than the plan demanded in the first place. That, and Plo sensed that there was more to this. He was not yet finished with the Malevolence.

There was another long, searching look from Qui-Gon alongside a gentle prod in the Force against Plo’s shields.

_I am at peace, my friend._ Plo said, pleasantly surprised that the friendly bond was still strong enough to speak.

Qui-Gon finally nodded, then continued with the briefing. “Blue and Indigo will man a flight of Y-Bombers escorted by the 104th’s Gray Squadron and General Plo Koon. They will attack at the drop point in between the Rimma and the Spine and we will wait out of scanner range for confirmation that the canon has been destroyed. After they have completed their mission, the Negotiator, Insight, and Redeemer will take the Malevolence and prevent it from escaping. The 327th will hold the chokepoint and prevent them from escaping through the Harrin while the 41st chokes off the other end of the Spine.”

The corresponding parts of the map lit up as he spoke and Plo could feel the Force gathering around what was to come, cloud heavy with rain.

///

Bacta was a way stronger smell than most beings realized. It clung to the inside of Ahsoka’s nose and made her feel like she was trying to get over a cold or something. There was that current of healing, and the stuff that was always under it. Yeah, there was a reason most Jedi didn’t like the Healer’s Wing. Or was that just her Master?

The air vent was still empty and the grate was still unlocked, so Ahsoka dropped in as soon as she was in the right place. Wolffe looked almost as unimpressed as Cody did when she did something like that.

“You know, if you wanted to use the door, I’m pretty sure they’re not allowed to tell you ‘no’,” he said.

“They outrank me, and medics are scary.” Ahsoka swung herself into the chair next to him and offered him a piece of jerky. Eating real food in front of someone stuck with medical rations was just rude.

Wolffe did the not-quite-a-sigh thing and took the jerky. As soon as he took a bite, he melted into the bed and Ahsoka snickered. Even if she’d done the same thing when Master Ti gave it to her, that was still funny.

“Whadya wan’?” Wolffe’s voice was muffled by the jerky.

Ahsoka realized that she should’ve expected that question earlier and swallowed, trying to figure out which thing to bring up first. After another bite of jerky and more chewing than jerky should ever be subjected to, she decided to just go for it.

“How’d you build your shields? The first time, I mean.”

Wolffe’s signature stuttered, but he was completely still. Kind of like Cody did sometimes, now that Ahsoka thought about it. That was weird.

“Standard training on Kamino,” he said after a while.

Padmé would be so proud, Ahsoka heard the skirting tone under his voice without even having to use the Force.

“Yeah, but how?” She took another bite of jerky.

Wolffe’s eyes flickered around the ceiling like he was looking for something, jerky forgotten in his hand.

“Nothing complicated. The mental version of keeping your mouth shut, basically.”

That was definitely either a lie or an oversimplification.

“Right, but you were shielded well enough that. Well, you know.” Ahsoka cut herself off at the _snap_ that went through the Force.

“I don’t think that was unique to me, Commander.”

“Right, yeah.” Master Qui-Gon might not have said what happened on Kamino the first time, but Ahsoka wasn’t stupid. The Abiik-Kemirs showing up with another Force Sensitive after leaving with Rex?

What else could that mean?

Ahsoka didn’t have to _see_ them to know who was there. She’d spent how long with those people? And that was the other thing. The Abiik-Kemirs had obviously trained to hide their Sensitivity to the Force from anybody who could sense it. But the clones had hidden without training. Not only had they hidden, but they’d hidden well enough that Wolffe hadn’t even known until his shields had been cracked. That was weird too. How many more of them were like Wolffe and Rex?

That was the real question.

It was also none of Ahsoka’s business. She was still a padawan; that was something Master Ti could figure out. Right?

Right.

“How do you shield?”

Ahsoka opened her mouth to answer, but hesitated.

How had she learned to shield? It’d been so long ago she barely even remembered.

“Well. The Force is involved, obviously.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s. So. You know how we meditate, right?”

“Yeah…”

“So, that’s kind of the foundation. For me, I kind of picture my shields as part of my skin. So, a layer that goes around my mind and keeps all the nasty shavit out of my head and keeps all my emotions and stuff inside where they belongs. And the Force is kind of like a ray/particle shield that makes it extra tough. Like, it’s part of my skin and makes it way harder for all the stuff to get in. And bonds are kind of like an IV or something. It’s not perfect, but that’s the best way to explain it.

"When I meditate, I imagine either a cut healing if my shields are cracked or adding another layer. And the Force is also like body armor, so an extra layer on top of what’s already there to protect the really important stuff.” Ahsoka picked up speed as she got into the explanation; Master Che’s voice playing in the back of her head as she went.

Wolffe’s eyebrows furrowed as he worked it over and Ahsoka finished off another piece of jerky.

“That’s not how we learned,” he said as soon as she finished.

“Really?” Ahsoka could sense the ever-present suspicion behind the curiosity.

“It’s more layers of thought. I guess- _this_ -was probably hidden as deep as it got.” Wolffe spat out _this_ like a curse.

“So it’s like you’re trying to put the layers back on and keep getting interrupted by the Force, then?” She asked, mostly to cover the awkward air from Wolffe noticing her flinch despite her best efforts.

Wolffe cocked his head before raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Makes sense. I mean, it’s a whole new set of senses to get used to. It’s like you grew montrals or something.”

His eyes flickered to the top of Ahsoka’s head and she just managed to catch herself before she laughed at that.

“Right.”

“So. Um.” How was she supposed get this part out?

“What?” And Wolffe was back to overtly suspicious and prickly. Great.

“I don’t know if anyone told you. But I figure I should just in case they don’t think to come down here-“

“Spit it out.” That was an order if Ahsoka’d ever heard one.

“We’re going after the Malevolence. Master Plo, Blue, Indigo, and Gray Squadrons, and me.”

Wolffe sat back again, and Ahsoka could _feel_ the layers he’d ben talking about. That was cool, and that was definitely not the time she should’ve been thinking about it.

After a long second he nodded.

“Right. Do yourself a favor, Commander?”

“Um, sure.” That was a weird way to phrase things.

“Watch your back with that thing; you don’t want to know what else it’s capable of.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Haar’chak-Damn it  
> Jetii-Jedi


	22. We've Got 'em on the Ropes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death of the malevolence

It was either really early or really late depending on how someone saw it. Ahsoka saw it as really early and wanted caf more than anything. But caf gave her the shakes; that wasn’t good for flying anything, but especially not for flying an Aethersprite. So she drew on the Force and hoped that Master Qui-Gon’s spiel about the Light giving all the energy a being needed wouldn’t be complete shavit. It wasn’t working, but she kept trying anyway.

She still couldn’t believe she’d beaten Master Plo to the hanger.

The lift dinged and Ahsoka saw Glass and Major Trace walk out, heading for Indigo’s Headhunters. They both gave her a sharp salute as they walked past and she caught herself just in time to do the ‘customary’ Jedi bow.

The rest of 104th’s Gray Squadron followed them out into the hangar after a few seconds and Ahsoka got to know their signatures as best as she could. That could be the difference in a battle, at least from what what she knew from the sims and Christophsis, anyway. She was glad Blue and Indigo would be there. They were the only squads that’d stepped up to run flight sims with her after Master Qui-Gon had suddenly decided that their layover on Corellia was a good time to brush up on her teamwork skills.

Ahsoka headed for her Aethersprite as R4 rolled by to get loaded in. She sensed Master Plo in the hanger as they locked the astromech into place and saw him heading for Master Qui-Gon’s Aethersprite. He was going to spend at least an hour adjusting the settings before they took off. From painful and personal experience came growth. Supposedly.

Wolffe’s warning was still in the back of her head. As she stared over at Gray Squadron, Ahsoka wondered how much of that warning had been for them too. She felt the nerves start churning her stomach, but her hands and feet were steady and the Force was at her fingertips. Whatever came, she was ready.

Blue and Indigo Squadrons made their way across the hanger as Master Plo walked over to her. That had been fast!

“Are you ready, Ahsoka?” Master Plo didn’t ask if she was sure, but are you ready was the same thing.

“I’m good to go. This’ll work the best if there are two Jedi to lead, just in case. Besides, I don’t want to get in the way on the bridge.” Last time she’d just wound up in a fighter anyway, and she’d almost gotten Stacks in serious trouble.

She wasn’t going to do that again.

“Indeed. Be careful, Ahsoka. I sense danger ahead, more than we can see.”

“Yes, Master Plo.” Ahsoka turned around to the sound of Oddball jogging toward them.

“Shadow Flight is ready to go on your command, General Koon.”

“Good; thank you, Oddball.”

The man headed back to the Y-Bombers, making some sort of sign to his gunner as he climbed into the pilot’s seat.

///

Wolffe had managed to claw his way onto the bridge for the ambush on the Malevolence. He was still way too oversensitive to the feeling of so many lives, emotions, and things around him. But (annoyingly) he was starting to get used to it. Cody’s presence was a familiar anchoring feeling at his side in the buzz of the bridge. The fighters’ IDs were all lined up in neat rows on the display of the Negotiator, and a battlemap was already prepped with the drop point on display. General Jinn was somewhere else on the bridge talking to Admiral Yularen from what Wolffe could hear.

Cody hadn’t said anything, but Wolffe knew he was pissed that Commander Tano was part of the assault mission. In Wolffe’s opinion, Christophsis and Geonosis had been way worse than going after the Malevolence was going to be, even after everything that’d happened. But Cody needed something to worry about; ka’ra forbid he actually try to be optimistic while planning for the worst for once. Wolffe had already heard about how many hours she’d logged when he’d freaked out about a shiny leading the Grays on his own. The Commander had more hours than some of the men in the bombers. Granted, most of them weren’t combat hours, but experience was still experience. She’d proven she knew what she was doing and could think on her feet over Christophsis.

“This is Shadow Leader, standing by.”

“Shadow One, standing by.”

And they went down until Shadow Nine sounded off, the familiar pre-flight chatter filling the channel. Even General Koon was talking.

“Gray Leader, standing by.”

There was Commander Tano. Ridge was going to have an opinion about her being the leader on this. He was basically in the same camp as Cody as far as padawans in the field went. As long as he kept his mouth shut about it in the field, it would, probably, be fine, especially with Trace there. Whether Wolffe would be fine after whatever he was going to say about it when they got back was the real question.

After everyone was done sounding them off, General Jinn clicked the comm and the chatter died down.

“Everyone knows their mission. You must destroy that canon, we cannot give you any support until it is disabled. Fly safely, fight well, and may the Force be with you.”

“Shadow and Gray Squadrons, you are go for launch.”

“Roger, command.”

“Understood.”

The galaxy stopped, and after it restarted, ten ships’ lights buzzed past the bridge’s forward viewport, General Jinn’s Aethersprite in the lead. Another pause, and ten more ships joined Shadow Squadron, Aethersprite in front.

Part of Wolffe twisted at Gray going out again so soon, but if they didn’t get past it as soon as possible, they were going to get stuck. Getting stuck was as good as signing up to get decommissioned. So he watched them fly by with Commander Tano in front and hoped to Manda she knew what she was doing.

///

Ahsoka felt the Grays behind her, Master Plo and the Shadows to the left. Space wasn’t just cold, it was dark, and twice as bad in the cockpit of a starfighter as it was in a Destroyer without anything to distract her. The Negotiator loomed behind them, a huge hunk of metal and transparisteel that drifted through space on impulse. She breathed in deep, taking the second between line-up and flight to take control of the nerves that were crawling up her throat and trying shake her hands. She let the memories and the smells and the fear go for that second before she breathed out, stretching out and pushing it all out alongside like it was real. It was; it had _weight_ that came off Ahsoka’s shoulders as she wrapped herself in the Light.

She was ready.

“Shadow and Gray, mission is go. Repeat, you are clear for flight. May the Force be with you.” The man on comms was someone Ahsoka recognized, but she didn’t know his name yet.

The ship glided forward, an extension of her as usual, and she felt Gray falling in behind her again, all of them in position next to the bombers they were escorting. Blue and Indigo lit up the Force, eighteen signatures all together in a tight formation with Master Plo in the lead. As soon as they were all in place, Ahsoka fell back to the rear, checking in with Trace as she moved. She could feel the rage, the thirst for vengeance, all of it soaking the Force around the Grays like oil. It felt like Torrent after Slick. And they’d just given them the chance to shoot the kriff out of the bridge of the ship that had destroyed their battalion.

Why?!

She breathed, hands flexing on the controls. Master Qui-Gon and Master Plo knew what they were doing. They wouldn’t have let them on if they thought they’d do something that’d be bad for the mission. Her job, her only job, was to make sure they protected the Shadows; so that was what she was going to do.

“All I’m saying is that ARC-170s would’ve been better.” Broadside complained like he didn’t hate those simulation drills.

“And all _I’m_ saying is that if you don’t shut up about 170s, I’m going to shoot you.” Matchstick snarked back.

“If we used 170s we would’ve had to pull from Green, Red, and Orange, and they were all on duty the shift right before the Malevolence. You don’t want them flying,” said Gray Three.

“If that were how we did things, we’d have to leave you behind every flight, Vital,” Gray Five said, and Ahsoka swore she could hear the same smirk Oddball usually had on in his voice.

“Yeah, Vital. And we wouldn’t want to leave _you_ behind, would we?” That was Glass; at least she knew one of them.

“At least I’ve never tried to punch out my cockpit cover.”

“It was a sim! Those don’t count!”

“If that were true, you’d be Gray Three instead of me.”

“You’re only Three because you’re the only other pilot Trace can stand to have anywhere near his wing, isn’t that right, sir?”

“Vital is Gray Three because otherwise I’d have to trust him not to screw up by himself.”

“Hey!”

“Children.”

“He started it.” Vital almost whined.

“I don’t care.”

“Gentlemen, I believe it would be wise not to test Captain Ridge’s patience.”

The comms went quiet for half a second before Matchstick found something to talk about.

“Okay, but this is cool. We’re going to take a _cruiser_ with twenty starfighters. That’s awesome!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We’ve got to make sure we get close enough to do it, first.” Broadside warned.

“At least someone’s optimistic. If we go in thinking it’s going to go to hell then it will.” Ahsoka couldn’t help saying.

The comms were quiet for a long few seconds before one of them answered.

“All due respect, Commander. But we’re twenty starfighters against a cruiser. Do those really sound like optimistic odds?” Ridge asked, voice as dull as his signature.

“In the right hands, which’re ours, yes. Right, Master Plo?” Maybe it was a low blow to bring in Master Plo, but Ahsoka was right and she knew it.

“The Force is with us. Our hands are trained, and we are all as prepared as we can be. I believe Ahsoka is correct, Captain Ridge.”

“Yeah, well I’ll believe it when we’ve all made it out of here alive.”

Ahsoka kept quiet. The thing was…the thing was, that Ridge wasn’t really wrong. Twenty starfighters. Nine with a payload of proton bombs that had to be dropped right on a weapon that had taken out three Star Destroyers with basically no effort. Eleven with their primary weapons systems being useless for everything but defending the Y-Wings.

That wasn’t technically true.

The Headhunters might be able to do enough damage with torpedos to cripple at least some of the Malevolence’s systems.

But looking at it like that made it seem almost like a desperate sort of suicide mission. Except that Ahsoka knew they’d be able to do something. She could feel that it was going to work out somehow. That they’d make it. But that didn’t always mean that everyone would be fine. She’d felt the same during that battle after Slick had destroyed all their heavy equipment. They’d made it. But they’d lost men on the way. Nova hadn’t ever been the same. Wouldn’t ever be the same.

So as they flew, she meditated on it. She did what she was supposed to and tried to let the Force answer the question. It wasn’t helping, but it was all she could do.

///

The Malevolence reverted to normal space just outside the safe distance and started shooting in seconds. There weren’t any Vultures that Plo could see, but that did not mean that they weren’t there. The men responded with well practiced ease and Plo sensed Ahsoka drawing on the Light nearby. Electricity crackled through the clouds in the Force and Plo knew the ion canon was charging.

“We have little time. We must close on the canon. Are we all together?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, Master Plo.”

“Standard attack formation. Gray Squadron fall in around us, Ahsoka, cover us from behind and watch for Vultures and Buzz droids.”

“Yes, sir!”

They fell in together, Plo in the lead feeling the lights of the men behind him and the mist gathering around Ahsoka as she followed them. The Malevolence loomed in front of them and Plo saw what he had been looking for.

“Ahsoka, the Vultures will come out of those ports you see there. Keep watch for them, we will have to time this carefully.”

“Yes, Master Plo. Grays One, Three, and Five, you’re with me; the rest of you stay with Shadow. Copy?”

“Copy, Gray Leader.”

“Copy.”

The three of them switched subtly with the ships that were covering Shadow nearest Ahsoka and Plo felt the charge build. This was it.

Vultures shot out right as they hit firing range. Ahsoka’s group peeled away to chase off the majority of the Vultures as Plo and the rest of the Grays fired at those the refused to be deterred, Ridge’s voice in his ear commanding them to stay on point.

“Shadow, whatever you do, you must make it to the canon.”

“Copy, Shadow Leader. Keep it together boys.”

“Shadow Leader, Shadow One, we’ve taken a hit to our left.” That was Matchstick, and Plo knew.

“Get out of there, Shadow Two.”

“It’s fine sir, I can control it.”

“Shadow Two, the General gave you an order-“

“We have a mission. That canon has to go, we’ll stick it out until it does.” Matchstick’s voice and presence were tight as he fought to control the ship and Harpy was much the same.

But Plo _knew_ , he could feel it as surely as his own hands on the controls.

“Shadow Two, trade with Shadow Nine.” Perhaps if he was further back, out of the main onslaught of Vultures.

“Copy, Shadow Leader.”

“Gray Two, give Shadow Two cover.”

“Copy, Shadow Leader.”

Plo felt the orders being carried out as he shot down another vulture.

Ten seconds and closing.

Nine.

“All Shadows, form up on me.”

A chorus of voices copied and Plo stuck to Shadow One, making sure to stay out of their way.

Five.

Everything tightened and a Vulture approached just outside Plo’s range.

Four.

The canon was almost right under them and Plo saw the dogfight Ahsoka was leading, cutting the Vultures off from supporting their fellow fighters.

Three.

The Vulture got closer and Plo focused on it, drawing the Force tight around him, the shot would have to be precise.

Two.

He breathed out, fingers on the triggers, the shot wasn’t quite right yet.

One.

The Force felt like a ledge and Plo fired, knowing the shot was good.

“Everyone clear out! Go go, go!”

They all streaked away, and Plo _knew_ lungs seizing.

“We have a problem, Shadow Leader.”

“Shadow Two, you stick with us.”

“Not an option. Ret’uryce mhi, vod.”

“Don’t you kriffing dare, you son of a Hutt!”

Shadow Two was gone in a blaze of fire exploding against pursuing Vultures and another empty space where there had been bright lights.

///

Ahsoka didn’t know why she was crying. Nobody’d died yet, the Vultures hadn’t been able to stop the bombers, the canon was gone, the Negotiator, Insight, and Redeemer were moving in to cut the Malevolence off. They won. Everything was fine, but she was practically blinded by tears and couldn’t breath through the snot in her nose.

“Grays, disengage and catch up with the bombers.” Her voice was wet, but it was steady, and that was all she could ask for.

“Yes, sir.”

They peeled away in a tight formation around Ahsoka and caught up with the bombers, no problem. Except. Wait. One, two, three, four, five… She had to have counted wrong, right? One, two, three, four…

She hadn’t.

Now wasn’t the time to ask.

But.

But.

These guys were the ones who’d lived through Christophsis. They weren’t supposed to just be _gone_ like that. She would’ve known! Except. She had, hadn’t she. The crying.

She’d known.

The Negotiator was in front of them now, pulling in to trap the Malevolence. Intellectually, Ahsoka knew that it was worth it. But. These guys had saved her kriffing life. They’d followed her into a fight and had kept her safe. And one of them was gone now. The pilots weren’t supposed to just disappear. And the Indigoes. They hadn’t lost anybody yet. What were they gong to do?

After Christophsis. Well, after the first part, she’d been too overdrawn to feel those deaths, and she hadn’t been running flight sims with them for hours. She hadn’t really known any of them.

Ahsoka drew the Force around her, trying to find that warm space she’d made for Wolffe, that Master Qui-Gon had made for her after Geonosis. She couldn’t reach. It was right there, her mind scraping it. But she couldn’t reach it. And she had to!

_Peace, little ‘Soka. Now is not the time for guilt and grief. We must press on until the job is done._ Master Plo said, Force presence ghosting as much peace as he could spare for her.

The words were like a shock and Ahsoka pulled her shields up around herself and stood on the Light, one solid patch of ground beneath her feet.

///

Only one ship lost. That was better than Cody had expected for how the plan was supposed to go, even if it had been the best way to do things. Apparently, them blowing up the ion canon had messed with most of the ship’s systems too, so the Destroyers weren’t taking very heavy fire. Nothing the shields couldn’t handle. Another round of fighter squadrons joined the Grays and the Shadows, falling in behind General Koon and Commander Tano and keeping the Vultures off of the Destroyers.

Wolffe winced and Cody didn’t have much time to decide if he was going to ask before Wolffe said something.

“Maybe you were right.”

“About what?” With Wolffe it could be anything.

“She’s still a real shiny. It seemed like she dealt with Christophsis alright, but if I can feel that.” Wolffe trailed off eyes darting around.

Nobody else was really at the viewport. They were all too busy taking orders from Yularen and General Jinn. The part of the plan Cody’d been left in charge of wouldn’t happen until the space part of it had died down enough to get transports across.

“She’s been running sims with them so that she can take over for General Jinn leading dogfights and fighter runs. This is the first time this’s happened since they started. But she’s still flying, and it looks like the Grays are all fine.”

That didn’t mean Cody was any less angry that she was having to learn things like that. But that she was capable meant that she was a good person to have around. It made her more competent than a lot of the horror stories Cody had been hearing lately. General Jinn did that too, but Cody didn’t have room to touch that at the moment. He had five different big things in the air at once: chips, the Council being corrupt, the Senate being corrupt, Wolffe’s entire existence, and a younger brother to tear one out of the next time he got the chance to talk to him. Figuring out if he could or could not trust General Jinn to give a kriff about their autonomy was just a shade closer to being overwhelmed than Cody was comfortable getting at any given time.

The fighters twisted, pinning a group of Vultures between a pair of squadrons and turning them to space dust.

Cody checked one of the readouts nearby. The Malevolence’s shields were failing, it was a matter of time before they either tried to run, surrendered, or tried to take the three of them down with them.

“Gray Squadron, we’re reading a shuttle launching from the Malevolence! Pin that down, now! General’s orders.” Yelled one of the brothers on the sensor readouts.

Cody ran over, hearing Wolffe right behind. As soon as he saw the display, he knew they were going to lose it. Even with Commander Tano’s breakneck flying, they weren’t going to get there in time. And a shuttle could get through places that a cruiser never would. They were going to lose whoever was in there. Haar’chak!

Gray’s IDs screamed towards the shuttle register, and Cody felt everything got still, tense even though they all knew what was about to happen. The shuttle got to the edge of the battle, right at the jump point for the Outer Rim side of the Spine. Gray Squadron was still too far out to get a clean shot. The shuttle hovered for a second like one of those dragonfly things from Naboo. Commander Tano was almost in range. And the shuttle vanished into hyperspace leaving Gray Squadron to fill the vacuum with blasts of blue plasma that went nowhere.

Commander Tano was the one to report. “Command, this is Gray Leader. Shuttle has escaped. Repeat, shuttle is gone.”

The air froze and the hair on the back of Cody’s neck stood on end. He didn’t turn around, halfway afraid to see what Wolffe was going look like, to see yellow eyes or something.

“Gray Leader, this is Command. We read you. Return to main field and give Violet Squadron some support.”

“Copy that, Command.”

Gray turned on a credit and streaked back to the main clump of the battle, cutting down the Vultures tailing the Violets with ease.

Cody finally turned around to look at Wolffe. His face was hard, hands white knuckled on the readout; Cody felt the cold radiating from him and looked over at General Jinn worriedly.

“Nothing. Nothing but a kriffing ship to show for it.” Wolffe said so bitterly Cody could almost taste it.

There was nothing to say to something like that.

///

After the shuttle left, the droids fell apart. The battle was mostly blasting apart the Vultures and escorting transports to the Malevolence to deal with the droids inside and see what they could get off of its systems. Ahsoka was completely numb. She was working on the Force and the knowledge that her job was to keep Gray Squadron as intact as possible. And they’d lost whoever was in charge and Matchstick and Harpy had just died for the canon and nothing else, and the 104th had died for even less and that _didn’t matter_ because they had work to do and they couldn’t focus on that while there were still tinnies to deal with.

It felt like years and no time at all before Gray Squadron was finally pulled back in with everyone else. Ahsoka was still numb as she clambered out of her Aethersprite. Her hands were numb and she could feel a headache that was dim and far away from everything else. She couldn’t figure out why this was so much worse than Christophsis. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known any of the men that’d died there. It wasn’t like she hadn’t spent time with them. Sure she knew Matchstick and Harpy better than she had before. But.

But.

But that shouldn’t _matter_.

Or should it? She didn’t even know. Master Qui-Gon was coming, but she didn’t have the energy or presence of mind to even try moving. She just sat next to her ship and R4, clutching her gloves in still-numb hands and trying to ignore the blurry vision of the hanger around her and the constant buzz of movement in her montrals.

Master Qui-Gon was in front of her and she dimly heard him sigh and then he was sitting next to her on the floor.

To Ahsoka’s surprise, he didn’t try to send comfort or anything like that over the bond. Instead, there was a deep sense of miserable, painful empathy in the bond that made her feel like a spike of durasteel was in her chest. Neither of them said anything, but Ahsoka could feel Master Qui-Gon drawing the Light around them, highlighting the lives of the men around them, brightening the Lighter emotions and blurring the Darker ones. It was subtle, and Ahsoka halfway wondered, in the part of her brain that could still think about things like that, if she would ever be able to be that precise.

He was leaning against the Aethersprite, almost shoulder to shoulder with her, eyes glazed over like they always were when he was meditating. Ahsoka checked her chrono. She’d been inside for almost an hour. It felt more like five minutes.

“Shouldn’t you be on the Malevolence?” Her voice was still wet and she belatedly realized how runny her nose was.

“Commander Cody is in charge of that part of the plan. My duty is to be here. Should they need a Jedi, Master Plo is more than capable of leading that part of the assault and is in a better position to do so.”

The spike of durasteel twisted with those words and Ahsoka refused to cry again.

“You should be with them. It’ll be crawling with tinnies.”

“Which they are more than equipped to handle, I’m sure. They do not need me to crèche-sit them for them to do their jobs effectively. In fact, I think they’d likely be offended if I tried to do that.” And how could he be so off-hand and _mild_?

Most of a battalion was dead. Some of the 212th was dead. They were gone. And nobody but the people around them were going to care. And it made her so _angry_!

“You’re supposed to be there anyway, aren’t you? I’m fine.” Never mind that she was planning to sit next to R4 and her fighter until she died. That wasn’t the point.

“Perhaps. But here is still where I need to be. Not where there are perfectly competent men who know how to lead a battle like that with or without my help.”

“I’m not going to Fall or go insane if you go with them.” Ahsoka spat, knowing the words came out too angry and not caring.

“That shouldn’t be, and isn’t, the only thing I care about, Ahsoka.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Master Qui-Gon winced and she almost felt bad.

Almost.

“You’re right. I’ve been absent lately. Far more than usual, and far more than is fair to you. But don’t mistake my absence for a lack of care. You are still my padawan, and that means that you are always going to be important to me.”

“Saying it doesn’t make it true, Master.” Master came out almost as bitter as Wolffe’s voice around anything about the Force.

Master Qui-Gon was quiet, the general chaos of the hangar filling the silence, but not enough.

“That’s true. Action means more than words. And I’ve not been active enough to make what I’m saying carry nearly as much weight as it should. You never should’ve been put in this position. That you’re paying for my lack of ability is nothing short of criminal on the part of everyone involved, especially myself. I had thought that I had improved in that after so many years. But it seems I’m still learning the same lessons even after all this time.”

That brought Ahsoka up short. If she’d learned one thing after a year of being Master Qui-Gon’s padawan, it was that he was never that up front about whatever part he’d played in whatever went wrong without a lot of meditation and time. How much had he been shaken by what was happening? And how hadn’t she noticed?

“Regardless, I can’t promise I won’t make that mistake again in the future. But what I can promise is that I’m going to sit here with you as long as I need to.” He said, leaning back into the Aethersprite.

That miserable empathy was still thick enough that Ahsoka was almost choking on it. The bitter part of her. The part that was still angry, still hurt, still crying, wondered if this was about Ben. If Master Qui-Gon was still stuck on them after seeing Silas again even though that’d been a while ago. She knew she should really meditate on how bitter she was about that entire mess of a mission and what came after. It had been long enough, and it wasn’t even mean; it was _cruel_ and _petty_ and all the things that Ahsoka never wanted to be to blame Ben for this. But that part of her couldn’t help but be cruel and petty and angry and blame Ben for it all. It had all been fine before.

And now it wasn’t.

Master Qui-Gon was lightyears away ninety percent of the time unless Ahsoka was already in trouble somehow, she was finding tar in her core that she hadn’t even known was there, and people were dying all around her. And it was all weighing her down until she felt like she couldn’t breath past the weight on her chest and the blood flooding her lungs from the spike of durasteel that was _still kriffing there_.

She wasn’t going to cry again.

She was a padawan, and now she was a Commander, and she still wasn’t stupid; she knew she had to learn to keep her emotions more to herself. Cody wasn’t nearly as hard to read about things like that after she’d almost gotten blown up with him.

“What’s the kriffing point?” It was quiet and as bitter as burnt caf.

Master Qui-Gon sighed, and Ahsoka heard the weight of the galaxy in it.

“I don’t think there is one that would justify what we’re doing here, my padawan. But our point should be to serve the Light. And right now that means taking care of everyone as best we can. Including ourselves.” The hanger bustled, and Ahsoka breathed through the weight and the ocean in her lungs and listened to Master Qui-Gon do the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Ka’ra-Stars  
> Manda-Heaven  
> Ret’uryce mhi, vod-Goodbye, brother  
> Haar’chak-Damn it


	23. Back On the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time in the hyperlanes is time for surveying

Wolffe had been shoved back into the isolation ward as soon as everything was over. Something had happened, but he couldn’t read the constant input and trying to sort it all out was giving him a headache. No matter how traitorous the thought was, he couldn’t help thinking that taking the Malevolence hadn’t been worth the cost. Now that he knew what it was supposed to be, the feeling of so few of his brothers being around felt like a bloody missing limb. Or like all of them were bloody and missing. And all of that was concentrated in the other headache that he still had, haar’chak.

He’d forgotten Stacks was supposed to come by. So the door cracking open had jerked him out of what sleep he’d managed to get and made things awkward to boot. At least Stacks had the decency to look apologetic for waking him up. The medics just didn’t bother.

“Everything’s wrapped up. We’ve got orders to take you to Corellia and then send a transport from the Insight to escort you to Kamino.”

“They’re replacing them already.” Wolffe wasn’t really surprised; the war went on whether they were ready or not.

Stacks mouth twisted.

“Don’t bother, I know, I know; we have no choice and all that bantha osik. Get to the important parts.” Wolffe wasn’t interested in commiserating with the migraine he was dealing with; the sooner they got everything over with, the sooner the lights would be off again.

Stacks visibly pulled himself together. “Well, Cody’s plan can work, but it hinges on how much General Koon can figure out for himself and how much you can get around talking about.”

“I don’t know how much he can read between the lines anymore. I thought I had a good enough handle on it, but once he gets one thing he puts another four together.”

“So we focus on non-sequiturs?”

“I don’t think that’ll work either.”

“So what-“

“We need him to draw the conclusions himself like Cody said. I don’t like the idea of making ourselves look helpless or stupid, but if we make it look like we’re afraid of something with just enough evidence for him to look into it for himself.” Wolffe trailed off, trying to get the sour taste of that kind of plan out of his mouth.

Or maybe that was the sick from the migraine, he couldn’t really tell.

“So, no specific names, just generalized finger pointing?” The gears in Stacks’ head were turning loud enough the Wolffe could hear them.

“I guess. In the aftermath of, this, it might be easier to make him just be suspicious in general. I mean, they got close enough to the Spine that Coruscant was at risk. That shouldn’t have been possible with the 327th’s placement.”

The one possibly good relatively personal thing to come out of everything, and still not worth the price.

“Do you think just saying the same thing you already said in a different way could work?”

“Like how?”

“Like saying that the point to the Senate is credible in a different way. Making it look like the chips themselves might lead to the Senate instead of it being a vision from one of the Abiik-Kemirs.”

“He’s going to want to see what Bins has pulled off the chips for himself.”

“Right, right, but there’s decent evidence for someone on the Senate being responsible anyway, right? We already know that only the highest ranking members of the Senate can give orders using the codes, so that’s enough to confirm that someone in there has to know about them right? And there are a lot of jetiise who aren’t General Koon who have friends in the Senate.”

“We think. We don’t really know how true that is besides General Gallia, Windu, and Jinn.”

“Right, but we know that General Jinn is an aruetii to them. So it’s not really that likely that he knows anything.”

“Are you willing to take that bet, vod?”

Datapad smarts really weren’t everything.

Stacks sighed, looking around the room for something that Wolffe still couldn’t see.

“I know that we should’t-but you didn’t see him that day, vod. I don’t think anyone could fake that level of horror at the way We was talking about us.”

“But a jetii commissioned us. Don’t forget that someone had to make the down payment for the longnecks to even start looking for the Original. That means that someone on that Council thought that this was okay. And they had to get that idea from somewhere.”

“We shouldn’t trust the whole council! I’m just saying that we should think about trusting that someone who doesn’t trust the Council might not actually know anything. It’s not like anyone but General Koon and General Ti.” Stacks stuttered and stopped over General Ti’s name.

“See? You said that he was friendly enough with General Ti to meet in private yourself. If she’s suspect, then so is he. Any one of them who’s friendly with someone on the Council who hasn’t been cleared is. Besides, you can’t honestly tell me that Cody didn’t close off as soon as he figured this shavit out.”

“He’s too busy to think about all of this. That’s what I’m supposed to be here for, to help figure out where we’re supposed to go.” Stacks looked torn.

“Well now you have to decide. If Cody’s too busy covering for the removals, then you have to decide if you think that friendship with General Ti outweighs what he was like that day.”

“Where does that put General Vos? He was there too, you know.”

General Vos. Wolffe hadn’t actually met him yet, but he’d heard things from the 327th. Bly had feelings and opinions about his methods and how he did things. But he’d also made a decent enough impression that it was mostly just complaining about how much more reckless General Secura got when he was around. Nothing that said whether he knew anything about the chips or not.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to leave that up to Bly when we bring him in.”

“And General Koon?”

Wolffe bit the bolt. “Cody’s still right, and so are you. The best way is to make him draw his own conclusions. So maybe we let him see what Bins’ got and go from there. At least then we don’t have to worry about how our words sound for the time being.”

///

Fives shot awake in a cold sweat. He couldn’t press the buttons to open his drawer fast enough and his hands were so slick that he slid halfway down the ladder and had to break his fall with the Force. His heart was going a million klicks a second and his head was rushing in waves of thoughts, pictures, and feelings that made no sense and drowned out everything else. The world didn’t feel real.

Hands were on his shoulder and he almost punched Echo before he realized who that signature was.

Something was ticking slowly in his ear and an arm was around his shoulders again. Someone was whispering, words going in one ear and out the other, and Fives could feel Echo’s chest rising and falling against his arm.

Slowly, he got enough clarity to hear the words.

“C’mon, vod. You have to breath. That’s it.”

It was mostly just saying that he had to breath. Fives thought he’d been breathing, but to hear Echo tell it, he hadn’t been doing anything but trying to break his own arms.

As he got more air into his system, the dream came back to him in bits and pieces of fire and death and the vacuum of space. Something huge had happened. Something huge, and bad, and directly related to what was going to happen to Domino Squad, Fives could feel it.

“We’re not going to that outpost, Echo.”

Echo stopped and Fives felt the shocked energy pour off him.

“What the hells are you talking about?” Echo looked around covertly for anyone else, but Fives already knew that nobody was awake to hear them.

“I mean, we’re going somewhere else. That’s what that dream was trying to tell me; I can feel it.”

“Well if your dream was enough to make you panic like that, then I think I’d rather we go to that outpost. We don’t have enough experience to deal with something like that.”

“No, no, I think the dream was what happened that changed everything.” As soon as Fives said it, he knew it was true.

The world still didn’t feel real, the Force too close and too present for him to feel totally aware of everything. Did that mean that this was that important? What would General Ti say? Forget what General Ti would say; what did that sound like to Echo?

“Eyayah?”

Echo glanced around worriedly again before glaring down at Fives halfheartedly.

“What do you want me to say? I still don’t know how this is all supposed to work. Wouldn’t you know better anyway?” There was something bitter in Echo’s voice that cut across Fives’ oversensitive nerves in the Force like broken transparisteel.

“You’re the smart one. Whatever else I’ve got, that doesn’t make up for common sense, and you’re the only one in Domino with enough common sense to keep this in check. Someone has to keep the rest of us from being complete di’kute.”

Echo gave him a side eye before looking down the rows of their brothers.

“That’s Hevy’s job.”

“His job is to tell us to be idiots in the first place.”

“Pretty sure that’s Cutup.”

“You think Cutup would get anywhere if Hevy said no?”

Echo shook his head, but there was almost a smile at the corners of his mouth and Fives felt better in the warm energy that was seeping into the Force where the bitterness had been.

After a tihaar-warm pause, Echo started, “I just don’t understand why we’d be important enough to something like the Force for it to tell you, personally, that our fate or whatever it is is different now. We’re just clones, Fives. Just numbers, even with Names and whatever is going on with you and the Force and whatever else, we’re still just clones. Five out of millions of the exact same person. It’s like one of us talking to five of our cells, you know? Or not even, five of our atoms. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe that’s the point.”

Echo’s face was almost an exact replica of Commander Cody’s and Fives wanted to laugh, but the air was so fragile.

“I’m serious. We’re not important, but the Force cares anyway. Maybe that’s the point. General Ti said that life was sacred in the Force; maybe that’s what this is supposed to be about. It cares about us as a collective instead of individually. I don’t know why I would have this if that’s why. But she said it was the Force’s choice, and maybe that’s part of it too somehow. Like, it picked brothers to make a point. Their identities weren’t the important part, it was that we’re like everyone else. And that was the point. We’re like everyone else, so there are brothers who are Force Sensitive just like any other type of being, nat-born or not.”

“So we’re not important, but we are? Those can’t both be true.”

“Why not? There’s a whole galaxy out there, right? There must be entire planets of things that can’t both be true but are anyway.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“Yeah. But I’m the one with Force powers, so that means I’m right.”

Echo snorted and Fives finally felt like the world was real again, the swirl of Force and future backing off enough the the bench finally felt solid under him and he could see Echo for the vod he was.

///

There was a storm on the horizon. Shaak could feel it coming, the same as something that was echoing through the Force. She’d been disturbed by something that almost felt like a shatterpoint. It was a strange sort of balance between fate and something else that wouldn’t settle quite right in her mind. The old instinct to comm Mace about whatever it was flared bright for a brief second. Even after all that time, old habits still reared their heads in unexpected places.

The kettle beeped at her and she poured the water over the leaves, taking in the scent of the brewing tea almost absentmindedly. Tipoca vibrated under her feet, the Force vibrated along her nerves, and her thoughts vibrated in her mind, the tingly feeling of it leaving her feeling slightly disconnected from her own body.

It had something to do with what had happened to the 104th. She knew that much at least. And she knew what it would mean for their most recently graduated class of troopers. What it would mean for Fives was the immediate question, if she was honest. And that laid a decision at her feet: whether she was going to tell Plo about her padawan. Shaak needed to let Fives have the final say, that much was true. But the instinct to protect him was far stronger than she’d expected for such a short time. Even with all they had done and how many things she had already taught him, it was a far shorter time than she’d ever had with any of her other padawans and she wondered what that change meant.

In the end, it wasn’t truly the most important thing. The most important thing was clearing up the mystery of the men and protecting as many of them as she could. Which led her to the other thing that was disturbing her. The change in Domino Squad after whatever tests Rancor had run with them was quite pronounced. And Shaak had a feeling that it was more than just the contact with the ARCs that had changed them so. But if she were to pursue that end, it was virtually guaranteed that the Kaminoans would notice her doing so and would investigate themselves.

So it came down to another choice, if it was important enough to risk exposing them to see whatever it was the ARCs had done.

Shaak didn’t think it was. At least, not at that moment. But the thing that made her continue to question that decision was that Domino had improved so drastically. They were so much more themselves since whatever had been done had been done. And it was beautiful. The Force practically sang around them. That meant that there was something preventing the others from reaching that same state of being, and Shaak felt that was part of unraveling the mystery of how the men were put together from spark to trooper.

But it wouldn’t be worth it if all that discovery did was compromise them.

Back and forth her thoughts flowed, following the wave-like patterns of the Force along a route that wasn’t unlike the currents that made up the deep water of the oceans of Kamino. Always back to the same few questions. Always a matter of what was the least compromising decision she could make. The one that would help them the most. The one that would reveal enough of the mystery of Hibir to make it safe for Ben to continue to seek treatment at the Temple if he should want to after everything. The one that would make the Order flexible enough to survive the war and the millennia beyond.

What would make her padawan the best he could be, the safest he could be.

The tea let out a waft of sweet smelling steam and she poured some into her mug. Tipoca’s minute shudders were revealed in the surface of it after it settled and she watched the currents flow, the convection of the air curving the steam into graceful arcs that were just visible in the low light of her room. Everything was a cycle. It always came back to one decision made long enough ago that it felt fuzzy in memory with the current effects being too sharp and real to focus on how they could’ve come to be.

So was that the crossroads between a decision that was seen as well made and just, or one that would cause untold damage and suffering down the line?

///

Rex couldn’t stop thinking about the beskar. They’d brought it on board the Buurenaar Cabur with everything else they’d wanted before Silas set off whatever he’d done to the navicomputer and autopilot. He couldn’t sense it or anything like that. But it was sitting in the back of his head. Ejasa and Silas’ weird dialect of Mando’a. How different the symbols on their armor were from the other Mandalorians he’d seen. That they had a system in place for when Rex’s vod got to the rendezvous point. The picture was getting clearer, who their people were, the scope and scale of the war they were fighting.

And they’d lost someone.

Clearly they’d lost someone. After Geonosis, even before Geonosis, that kind of anger had been as constant as the training and then the work. But they weren’t like the Original. They were actively antagonistic with the Original, after the cantina. They were organized enough to think about challenging Jabba’s people. To do things like that regularly enough for it to be almost routine if he weren’t there.

There were bricks of beskar that radiated rage in the Force in the hold and Rex needed answers.

He followed Silas’ signature to the shop room. He was meditating as he worked, putting the pieces together for something or other. He still had his mask on, and he popped out of the trance as soon as Rex was across the threshold.

“Hey, Rex.”

He was way too carefully guarded in the bond to not know exactly what Rex was there for. All the things Rex hadn’t noticed he’d been filing away were coming to him one after the other again. He knew more about the Force Signatures and natures of the people he’d helped and run away with than he did about who they were as people. Pep talks and all. And that pep talk of Silas’ just made everything that much more unclear. That they fought slavers was obvious. What kind of network they had where something like that could happen to an active asset and go unpunished by everyone but themselves wasn’t.

“What’re you working on?” Asking any of them a straight out question about something to do with any of that would shut them down faster than switching off a droid.

“I thought I’d build a training remote for you to work on blocking with. It’s better than learning with Ben, or even worse, me.” Silas scooted a little further back on the bench so Rex could see the parts.

“I thought you didn’t use those.”

“After a certain point, they’re not challenging enough no matter how much you soup them up. But they’re great for figuring out which form works the best for you.”

“Right.”

“If you want.”

Did he want to? It was off topic, but even though he’d committed to the training, wanted to be able to fight for his brothers with every tool he had, Rex could feel that he was touching the Dark more and more every time. And he could feel how sentient it was, how easy it would be to slip. To lose his mind, himself to that would be… 

But that wasn’t what this conversation was supposed to be about.

“Let’s see how it goes.”

Silas nodded like that was the right answer and Rex really wanted to know how someone got to the point where that made sense to them.

“Where’d all of that stuff come from, anyway? That wasn’t just raids on ships out here. Not with everything else going on.” Talking abut The War like that; Rex was losing it.

“It’s not. Jabba pays people like that to transport stuff as well as to go out and get it. Pirates are less likely to get pirated and more likely to be able to fight off other pirates.” Cold, vicious satisfaction bled into the Force around Silas.

“So they go to the palace with what he paid them to transport and sell him whatever else of their goods they think he’ll take?”

“Exactly.” Something metallic cracked in Silas’ hands and Rex flinched.

“And beskar sells well.” Well, it wasn’t subtle, but Rex was losing whatever touch he’d had for that.

“Beskar always sells well.” The feeling of red-hot metal in the bond was almost warm enough to stave off the subzero cold that’d invaded the shop room.

The Dark was seeping into Silas and twisting along Rex’s nerves, weirdly welcoming as ever, even under the circumstances.

“What’re you going to do with it?” Asking felt like playing with liquid durasteel.

Rex wasn’t sure if the noise Silas made could be called more of a laugh or a cackle.

“We’re going to put it where it belongs, just like we put them where they belong. Nobody’s getting their hands on that beskar who doesn’t deserve to have it, trust me.”

“Right. Well, good.”

And that was as far as Rex was going to ask with how cold the room was and how much rage was in the bond. At least until it wasn’t so immediate.

///

Cody hadn’t been expecting to find anyone else in the range that late after the day they’d had and everything else. He especially hadn’t been expecting to find Commander Tano using one of the blaster rifles to mow down a bunch of holo droids. He thought that the Jedi just went with lightsabers. And that they weren’t supposed to go into things like the droids had done something to mortally offend them. Then again, it was the Commander. It wasn’t like she ever did exactly what anyone expected, was it?

He pulled a blaster from storage, grabbed a few charge packs, and set himself up far enough away that he didn’t think he’d intrude on whatever it was she was doing.

Target practice was easy. Target practice was simple. And most importantly, target practice holos didn’t shoot back. Maybe it was a type of meditation, letting his hands work on instinct and hours upon hours of practice while he thought about whatever it was he needed to think about. Except that there was almost too much to think about for Cody to even know where to start from the massive pile of confusion in front of him.

So he just wound up flitting from topic to topic without ever being able to settle on anything long enough to come up with a viable line of thought to follow. He went through an entire charge pack like that, hands and arms tingly with the recoil as he switched packs without any resolution to the chaos.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? There wasn’t ever goin to be resolution to all the chaos. Sure, it would end eventually, but the loose ends of it would wind up getting buried, still loose and free enough to trip someone else when they tried to get through everything. It was a different kind of chaos than the usual kind of war. The usual kind was the kind Cody was good at either tying up, getting around, or resolving himself. This was just chaos for the sake of chaos that someone hoped would keep anyone from figuring out what was really going on in the first place, whatever that was supposed to be. Even the line of thought was confusing!

Being confused annoyed Cody to the point of really needing to shoot something, hence the range.

“Um.”

Cody flicked on the safety and dropped the blaster into the safe position automatically.

“What can I do for you, Commander?”

Commander Tano looked really awkward and Cody checked his shields just to make sure he hadn’t been projecting any more than could be helped.

“I was thinking. So. Wolffe. I think you know.” She looked around in the most unsubtle way possible and Cody sighed internally.

Why were all shinies terrible at being subtle?

“I already checked, you know. For anything. And the door’s locked. But I think you know, and I needed to ask you something. Because I think you know something else. And if I’m wrong, I want to know.”

Of all the times. “I know, and I figured you’d figure it out after we pulled in 1976.”

“Right, yeah. So. The thing is. I was thinking about it. And with Wolffe and Rex, they’re like us; so I realized that it didn’t make sense for them to be the only ones. Then I started think about Kamino, and.” Commander Tano trailed off, grabbing her arm and looking at Cody nervously.

Whatever he thought about those nerves; he was more concerned about Fives. The Commander knew his name, she knew his number, she knew his squad, she was General Ti’s protege or something like that, she was General Jinn’s padawan. Not only had neither of them been cleared, but General Ti was at the top of their list! Sure, she was still a shiny, but shinies asked their older brothers, their teachers questions. And one question to the wrong being-

“And?”

“And Fives. I think he’s like us too. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Fek

“Right.”

“I swear I won’t tell anyone! Not even Master Ti or Master Qui-Gon! It’s just. I needed to know. I couldn’t just, you know, walk around wondering. And if he gets put with the 104th, you know, he’s going to be around other beings who are going to be able to figure it out if he doesn’t know how to keep himself contained like Wolffe and Rex did.”

And he didn’t. He really didn’t. Even Cody, who couldn’t sense any of that at all, had been able to figure it out. What chance did Fives have of hiding around a being like General Koon?

“What are you planning to do with that?”

The thing was that Cody didn’t want to put their suspicions about General Jinn and the rest of the Order on a shiny’s head if she wasn’t involved. But she’d proven just how much sway a jetii shiny had. That was the crux of it: did she have enough experience, enough of a standing to be a threat beyond just knowing about them? If she didn’t, then Cody didn’t want to hurt her, to make her feel any more alienated that she already did by treating her like she couldn’t be trusted with anything. Beyond being potentially damaging, that might push her to say something that would get all of them killed, accidentally or otherwise. But if she did and was as cold as some of the other jetiise were, and Cody trusted her for even a fraction of a millimeter, he could get his brothers re-chipped or scrapped; neither one of those was an option.

“I meant it; I won’t tell anyone. Master Qui-Gon doesn’t go that deep in my head. Nobody does. It’s considered really rude, actually. His secret’s safe with me, I swear. I just needed to know. You know, if I was right or not. So that I could help Wolffe know what to do. Because it looked like he was one of the classes that was going to graduate soon, and they’re all probably going to get assigned to the 104th now. So. Yeah.”

She was so earnest that it hurt Cody to hear it. He really didn’t think she was at all capable of the kind of thing they thought the Council was doing to them. But he’d thought that about General Ti once too. Even if she didn’t know, she also didn’t know what questions might give away what she knew. All Cody had to know to know that were the questions she’d asked him since the 212th had been assigned to General Jinn. How was he supposed to keep Fives safe from an improperly phrased or ill-timed question?

“Commander Tano-“

“I know I’m a bit. Well. I know that I don’t always know how to keep my mouth shut. But I haven’t said anything about the important stuff. I knew Rex was on Christophsis and Master Qui-Gon and Master Unduli didn’t know that, and Barriss didn’t either. I knew Silas was Dark the second I sensed him on Geonosis, and I didn’t say anything. I knew that Ejasa was making an escape plan as soon as the Council made their ruling and I didn’t give them up. I won’t give him up either. I think you should talk to Master Plo, but I swear on the Force that I won’t say anything or ask anything that’ll give him away.”

Did Commander Tano trust Cody that much, or was she just trying to convince him to say something that would explicitly out Fives? Up to that point, he could say he’d been testing her or something like that. It would be hard to swing, but he could do it. But she looked almost desperate to have Cody just trust that she wouldn’t say anything. And he saw the ad again. The reminder that despite her position, how much she’d learned, the lives she’d saved, the power she had, she was still a shiny, still almost a cadet, still trying to figure herself out, still trying to find her place.

And Cody couldn’t push her out. If he was going to come down on the Jedi for treating their shinies like they did, he didn’t have the right to hurt one of them worse than what they did would. He was going to catch haran for it. But she was a verd’ika. Like it or not, she already knew enough that she was a threat anyway. What was the point in causing more pain?

“Okay, Commander Tano. Talk to Wolffe about it once he’s back on his feet, okay?”

She smiled, then nodded to him with the same sort of serious face he’d seen on so many other Jedi, and Cody really hoped he’d just made the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Haar’chak-Damn it  
> Osik-Shit  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Aruetii-In this case, outsider  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Eyayah-Echo  
> Di’kute-Idiots  
> Beskar’gam-Mandalorian Armor  
> Ad-Kid  
> Haran-Hell  
> Verd’ika-Little Soldier
> 
> The new part of the series, Neon, is right after this chapter!


	24. Stronghold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex and Neon see a new part of Tatooine and foundations are laid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Ka'ra-Stars  
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings  
> Vod’ikase-Little Brothers/Siblings  
> Alor-Leader  
> Bic jate gana gar norac, Shmi-It’s good to have you back, Shmi  
> Mhi ruga baat on’tuu akaan ba’sol-We got worried when the war started  
> Ogir ru jetii ba’acyk-There was Jedi interference  
> Val kar’tayli-They know  
> Shi cuun dinui, ibic yaim morut’yc-Only our gift, this home is safe  
> Ni eparavur takisit par tion rucuyi hiib-I apologize for what was taken  
> Mhi slana bat-We go on  
> Te Tsad Droten evaar’la re’aru-The Republic is a new issue  
> Gar sinii-You mean  
> Tion mhi nari-What can we do  
> Ni ven’rehojaa’i gar tion’tuur ni kartayl-I’ll tell you when I know  
> Bal gar evaar’la adat-And your new person?  
> Ven’cuyi payt bah kaysh’copad-Will be left to his own desire (will, want)  
> Troch-Certainly (archaic)  
> Aruetiiyc demagolkase-Traitorous real life monsters  
> Aliit-Family/Clan  
> Osik-Shit  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Aruetiise-In this case, Enemies  
> Buir-Mother/Parent  
> Cabur-Guardian  
> Haran-Hell  
> Bic munit goyust at Lianna-It’s a long road to Lianna  
> Na bat Firebird’norac-Not on a Firebird’s back  
> Yaim’la-At home, comfortable  
> Jai’galaar-Shriek Hawk  
> Ret’uryce mhi, Nlora; jate taab-Goodbye, Nlora; good march

Neon was scared of Ben. The transfer had been made with as little fanfare as was usual for something like that, and they’d been on their way back to Tatooine with another member of Rex’s extended and extensive family onboard. It had been made quite clear after an accident with one of the mugs in the café that he was nervous around Shmi and Anakin, but downright terrified to be in the same room with Ben. He stuck to Rex like glue, following his brother like he was the only safe port in the sector. It would’ve been funny (reminiscent of other times) if it didn’t make Ben nervous about what exactly the clones thought of him with what Rex said they’d been shown as cadets.

Perhaps the masks didn’t help, but there was precious little Ben could do about that with Resol’nare.

So, stay out of Neon’s general vicinity he did, and stay far too close to Anakin he did as well.

“You know, if you actually talked to him, he might be less scared of you,” Anakin said, sounding on the edge of annoyed.

Ben wasn’t too concerned; Anakin hadn’t started trying to kick him yet, and the bond was too warm for it besides.

“Or you could just stay here. Getting in my way while I fix the heat. That’s fine too.”

“And make you have to keep getting up to retrieve things?”

“That’s what the Force is for.”

Ben flicked Anakin mostly for tradition than for anything else. Anakin snorted and sent a wave of false annoyance over the bond has he rattled the pipe that was currently making something about the heat malfunction in Shmi’s room.

“Look, all I’m saying is, if this works out, we’re going to have a lot more of Rex’s brothers passing through here. And it’s going to be a lot harder if they’re all kriffing terrified of you, you know?”

“Maybe Neon is the exception.” He probably wasn't.

“Or maybe Cody and Rex and the rest of the 212th are; we already know they’re more flexible than a lot of Rex’s brothers. And that’s in Rex’s experience just from Kamino, Geonosis, and Coruscant. Who knows what they’ve gotten into now that they’re out here.” And there was something cold, Dark, and vengeful in Anakin’s signature alongside his voice that made Ben wonder exactly what he’d turned his younger brother into for the fifth time that week.

The pipe came away with a clang and a sharp Huttese curse.

Ben wordlessly handed Anakin one of the terrycloth rags next to his feet and picked up the next set of tools he was going to ask for.

“Thanks,” Anakin said as he took the tube of sealant from Ben’s hand and gave back the terrycloth.

Ben hummed, leaning back against the wall again. Shmi was still in the pilot’s seat. She’d refused to let Anakin fly until he fixed the pipe. The beskar was sitting in their hold, burning a hole in the ship. Ben knew Rex had been sidetracked from asking more about it by Neon’s arrival, but that wouldn’t last forever. Rex was going to hear about everything sooner rather than later; he would have to. Jabba was going to go down while Rex was with them. Ben knew that with the same certainty he knew that Tatooine was too hot and sandy.

The pressing matter when it came to Neon in particular was how Ben was meant to help undo a lifetime of conditioning when his own barely let him remember what day of the week it was, let alone what he’d done on _that_ planet ka’ra only knew how many years ago. Anakin’s nerves pricking up at the 'intruder' onboard wasn’t really helping. Ben was aware that that was another product of what he’d done to his brother in the quest of training him. But the paranoia compounded on Ben’s own to the point that he was convinced that Anakin wasn’t really safe even though he was laid out perfectly fine and healthy enough to complain right in front of Ben.

It wasn’t as though knowing that Shmi and Anakin would be more than a little vocal if they thought that Neon’s presence meant more trouble than usual helped either. And Ben wasn’t necessarily convinced that it was just Anakin and Shmi’s nerves upsetting his equilibrium either. Rex was adding his own share of anxiety into the pot. While nerves weren’t unusual from Rex’s end, they seemed to usually go more along the line of trying to figure something out rather than along the lines of whatever it was that was bothering him at the moment. At least from what Ben was able to cobble together from the spill over.

“Could you toss me that multitool?” Anakin asked, reaching for the thing at Ben’s feet without looking.

Ben handed it over before Anakin could try to summon it and went back to making sure he didn’t accidentally maim himself somehow. What was going on, anyway? He hadn’t thought he’d backslid too badly since the start of their return to Tatooine. But perhaps he’d overestimated himself.

///

Landing on Tatooine was starting to feel way too familiar. Even having Neon there wasn’t changing the feeling of seeing the dustball out the viewport and walking into the blast furnace. Rex stayed between his brother and the Abiik-Kemirs. He hadn’t forgotten what had made him start questioning everything again in the first place, but they were staying with the ship while Ejasa went to go talk with their people and deliver the beskar. Ben had said something about them bringing Rex into whatever it was but he’d been too vague for it to really answer any of Rex’s questions.

Either way, the first priority was Neon for the time being. Initially, Cody had thought, and Rex had too, that they could just get their brothers out and try to get them into places where they could work and live without being questioned too much. Their faces were everywhere, but a lot of beings wore masks, hoods, and helmets all the time. As long as they were careful, it wouldn’t be too bad. But they’d forgotten how much they relied on having brothers around. Even though the Abiik-Kemirs weren’t at all the same, Rex had bonds and beings sitting inside his skull and that made it a lot easier to feel like he wasn’t alone. Because he wasn’t, not even inside his own head. He was part of an ecosystem.

Neon and the other Vode didn’t have anything like that, and if they were the types, like Neon, who were more attached to the collective, to being surrounded by brothers than the others, they’d have trouble. Rex couldn’t be sure, but from how Neon was sticking to him like a mynock, that seemed like at least half the issue.

Which led, again, to Rex keeping himself between Ben and Silas, and Neon. He didn’t actually mind doing that, but it wasn’t sustainable. Maybe Neon would be fine with Silas and Ejasa. He hadn’t thought it was possible for people to bond over broken pottery, but apparently Ejasa and Neon were a more similar kind of weird than they looked. Silas was weird in his own way, and definitely not the best person to leave someone anxious around when he was pissed about something. But Neon wasn’t shavit-scared of Silas the way he was of Ben.

Rex couldn’t get the secondhand feeling of Neon’s anxiety out of his head. The only way to fix that would be for Neon to talk to Ben, but neither of them looked interested in making that happen. Ben’s guilt was alive in Rex’s head and he could feel Silas’ exasperation with the whole situation, mostly at Ben and, weirdly, himself, right alongside. It was a strange combination, but easier to figure out and deal with than Rex’s own feelings about everything that’d happened.

“This is Tatooine,” Neon said, looking at the dunes and Tatoos I and II.

“Yup, this is the dustball,” Silas said brightly, kicking a tiny pile of sand at Ben.

_Really?_ Ben sighed.

_It was a long flight and I don’t want that in my shorts._ Silas sat right where the little pile used to be anyway.

Neon looked around more and Rex stretched, looking for Tuskens or Jawas. Either one would be bad to run into with the ship right there behind them and no real translator, however capable Ben or Silas thought they were. Nothing. Well, for a given measure of nothing, nothing.

Neon had decided to go out barefaced and Rex’s gut was insisting that was a bad idea. Maybe if they went into town he’d try to get him to put a mask on or something. They were just out in the dunes, but someone might fly by.

If people just flew by on Tatooine, that was funny.

“How far out from that town are we?” Neon squinted at the suns.

“About thirty minutes’ flight Northeast on the bike. You can see it if you look closely.” Ben answered from his seat almost a klick away from the rest of them.

A tiny spike of sour nerves from Neon later and he was staring at the horizon. To Rex’s surprise, he could sense the buzz of something in the distance if he focused on it hard enough. It was like looking at something with his eyes dilated, kind of fuzzy and hard to see, but definitely there.

Neon sighed and sat right on the sand too, Rex still between him and Ben.

Rex only stayed standing long enough to do another sweep of the surroundings before he sat next to his brother. He was still amazed by how much more solid the ground was around another brother. It wasn’t that he'd felt like he was unstable or anything like that, but he hadn’t taken in how much being around so few people, around people who weren’t vode was throwing him off until Christophsis. Even then, he’d thought it was more of a missing or mourning that being gone than an actual detriment to his ability to work through things. That was stupid, but there it was.

Besides, part of Rex’s job was supposed to have been to take care of his brothers and know them well enough to know where they’d work best, not just give them orders. Taking care of his vod’ikase was literally programmed and conditioned into him at that point. It wasn’t good to do that and not take care of his own issues, Rex was aware of that. But at a certain point, if all he could do was worry and be nervous, it was better to focus on someone else’s problems for the time being while he worked his own out in the back of his head or something like that. Especially given that Neon needed something different than Rex and Cody had anticipated.

“You in there, Rex?” Silas asked.

“What is it?” How many times had he tried to get Rex’s attention; that was unacceptably sloppy if it was more than once.

“I was just going to say you guys can go inside if you want. Ben’s heading in and this kind of sun isn’t for everyone.”

That was code for Silas wanting to be alone to meditate for a bit, and Rex couldn’t deny the heat was getting to him.

“Neon?”

“Please.”

Tatooine, it broke everyone in minutes; maybe they should’ve trained on a desert planet instead.

///

A pot of Cassius was brewing on the table in between them and Shmi wondered at it. It was hard to get Cassius to Tatooine, and it smelled like the expensive type. The new Alor had been put in place according to tradition, and everything was still sound. They were continuing with the old plans too. But they were more prone to overt displays of things like that than most on Tatooine.

“Bic jate gana gar norac, Shmi.” They shifted on the mat they’d put on the floor. “Mhi ruga baat on’tuu akaan ba’sol.”

They poured Shmi a cup before they poured their own.

“Ogir ru jetii ba’acyk.”

“Val kar’tayli?”

The air was brittle with broken secrets and Shmi sipped her tea. “Shi cuun dinui, ibic yaim morut’yc.”

The Alor stilled. “Ni eparavur takisit par tion rucuyi hiib.”

Something unexpected loosened in Shmi’s chest and she felt Anakin, Ben, and Rex reach out to her. After a quick reassurance that she was fine (that Ben and Anakin took as an order to sit with her in the bond) she nodded to the Alor.

“Mhi slana bat.” Shmi took another sip of her tea before she went on. “Te Tsad Droten evaar’la re’aru.”

“Gar sinii.”

Shmi nodded and the Alor sat back, angry, disappointed resignation palpable in the Force. After a few seconds of silence, they sat up again and Shmi could feel the purpose cutting through everything.

“Tion mhi nari?”

Rex would be the best one to answer that question. “Ni ven’rehojaa’i gar tion’tuur ni kartayl.”

“Bal gar evaar’la adat?”

“Ven’cuyi payt bah kaysh’copad.” Shmi knew she snapped a bit too much in saying so.

“Troch.” The Alor’s signature had curled back, though their voice still sounded agreeable; it was a twitch, an instinct like Shmi's own.

Still, Shmi nodded and turned to less shifty topics of discussion with Rex’s presence sitting alongside the others in her mind.

///

Rex had zoned out staring at his caf. Neon was sleeping in his room and Ben and Silas were somewhere else. He’d tried meditating for a bit, but he was still too caught up in the currents of whatever else was going on to figure anything out.

Ejasa sat across from him and he could feel the same tension from earlier radiating from her.

After an awkwardly long time of Ejasa preparing her tea, the bond on her side opened again and Rex got a full blast of the apprehension, the nerves.

“What do you know about Mandalorian history?”

Not much and Rex said so.

Ejasa nodded. “We’re considered prizes by slavers going as far back as the Zygerrian Empire establishing itself as a slaving empire. People will pay a lot to have complete control over someone like us, especially considering the kind of reputation Mandalorians have.”

Oh. “And you were taken captive?”

Ejasa’s laugh was sharper and colder than anything Rex had ever heard out of her mouth before.

“No, no. I was born into slavery, like my grandparents and theirs. One of my great grandparents was taken captive and passed on the Mandalorian way, but there were Mandalorians on Tatooine before we came here and there still are. There’s an entire culture of Mandalorians who are all either slaves, freed, or the descendants of freed slaves. An entire people who follow the Way in the only ways available to them. The same as there are Death Watch and True Mandalorians and who knows how many others, not just the New ones.”

The stathases on their pauldrons.

“And your people are organized.” They would have to be; it was the only thing that made sense.

Ejasa nodded, and Rex could feel relief over the bond. She’d been afraid. Of him. Of something he might’ve said, or maybe something he might’ve done, it wasn’t clear enough.

“And you’re with them, you, Ben, and Silas.”

“Always. But only actively since Ben came to us. Before then, well.”

Rex nodded before she could say anything else; he’d seen enough of Tatooine to know. It all made sense. All the pieces fit in that.

“And what happened to Silas, on that mission he told me about?” What kind of people wouldn’t punish someone for doing something like that to one of their own if they could?

“They weren’t Tatooinian. They were from somewhere closer to Mandalore, somewhere more traditional. We met them by coincidence, or at least we thought we did. The Force was clear, now that we have the distance to look at it. But then, we were looking to see if their stronghold were viable allies. They weren’t, and I will be angry until the day I die that Silas paid the price for us to find that out, aruetiiyc demagolkase.”

The same red-hot metallic anger was burning in the bond and the Dark wound around Ejasa like invisible vines. Rex could _feel_ the guilt, the liquid durasteel fury, the protective drive still centered around the sleeping part of the bond Silas was sitting in.

After a second Ejasa closed off again and Rex felt the Dark recede slightly, the rage cooling off into more of a banked fire than molten metal.

“The Alor wants to know what they can do when it comes to the Republic. I haven’t said anything. Whatever you want them to do, that is your call. There’s no love at all between our kind of Mandalorian and the Republic. Even less than there is between the Republic and the Duchess of Mandalore.”

The sucker-punch hit Rex in the gut, indecision rolled over by the damage he’d seen in Cody, Stacks, Wolffe, Trace, Neon, every brother he’d seen, in himself. He could feel the truth of what Ejasa was saying in the Force as well as he could feel the stool under him.

“I, I’ll let you know. When I have a plan.” Rex’s voice came out way fainter than he’d wanted it to.

Ejasa nodded, and it seemed like she was just going to drink her tea and let the reaction settle.

“I know you’ve had questions about us. I know that you already knew what we did. But we’re in the middle of something major. If you want to see, the stronghold, what it looks like, you’re welcome to come with us to the meeting. They’re rare, only when there’s a big decision or announcement that needs to be made. It’s too risky to have too many of us in one place all the time even if most of us didn’t live elsewhere. That many Mandalorians looks like an army.” The unspoken _because it is one_ hit the same place as the bruise from her other words.

Rex stared at his caf and felt along the Force, reaching out, and the Dark answered, a spark of Light pulling along the important part.

“What about Neon?”

“Your aliit is always welcome here, and if they’re welcome here, they’re welcome in the stronghold.”

Rex felt warm, Light and Dark swirling around him in a way that felt exactly right.

///

Dawn on Tatooine was the best time to be outside in Ben’s opinion. It was cool enough to be comfortable and the sky was the most beautiful blend of colors even without clouds.

Neon climbed on the roof, and Ben stayed very still; that was not the place to startle someone, however unintentional. To his surprise, Neon hesitantly came closer. He still kept a healthy distance that Ben cataloged as he sat. The apprehension wafted off of him in waves that made Ben feel like he’d missed some threat somewhere. Interesting how much Rex’s feelings had colored where Neon had placed in Ben’s assessment of what was and wasn’t a threat. Unsurprising if Ben thought about it properly, though.

It did raise another question that kept sliding off of Ben’s tongue the more he tried to think it clearly.

They both sat silently, watching the sky turn an impressive shade of orange where Tatoo I was about to rise. One thing Ben had always been able to say for Tatooine once he’d been able to think at all: the sunrises were breathtaking. They even made dealing with the heat worth it. Mostly.

“Are you from here?” The question was so quiet and rushed Ben almost couldn’t parse it.

Was he from Tatooine? “Not technically, no. But I do live here when we settle anywhere. So I suppose so, from a certain point of view.”

Neon seemed to be digesting that and Ben tried to relax somewhat. Anxiety was a common enough issue; he had to learn to differentiate between generalized anxiety and an actual threat again. Tatoo I was just peeking above the horizon and Ben watched the orange fade into blue around it. The Force itself was surprisingly even and undisturbed for part Tatooine that close to Jabba’s Palace.

“Why’d you take him?” There was a spark of determined tenacity under the nerves in Neon’s voice.

“He rescued us. Or helped us rescue ourselves, depending on how you see it. We weren’t going to leave him to his own devices, even if he hadn’t done that. But that he did, it meant a lot.”

The sky blazed a cloudless blue around Tatoo I. It was already starting to get hot.

Neon didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t leave the roof either. Ben counted that as a much better start than they’d had the other day.

///

The stronghold looked like it was one good storm from blowing over on the outside. Rex could feel Neon’s apprehension staring at the building. If he hadn’t been able to sense the driving, protective energy that coated the thing, he would’ve felt the same way. It was sun-bleached duracrete, just like every building on Tatooine, and it looked like it had been through about five different battles before they’d gotten there. But there was something that felt a whole haran of a lot like a bomb wired around the front door and someone very cautious on the inside right behind it.

“Bic munit goyust at Lianna,” whoever it was said as soon as they got close enough to set off the security cam.

“Na bat Firebird’norac.” Ejasa responded evenly, showing something Rex didn’t quite catch to the cam.

He eyed the empty street and the door again, feeling along the slight current that was definitely running around the door. After he felt the being behind the door start to move, he stepped fully in front of Neon. Heavy metal thunking came from inside and Rex heard Silas sigh, a drift of impatient routine humming along the bond with a twist of nerves and longing from Ben and the strongest, sweetest feeling of yaim’la from Ejasa.

The door finally clunked open and a being in purple and blue beskar’gam stood in the way with their hand on the butt of their blaster. They looked over everyone and Rex shuffled a bit more in front of Neon. After they’d looked over them all, they stepped aside.

“Welcome back,” they said with what almost sounded like a Concord accent.

Ejasa led the way in, Rex bringing up the rear, Silas acting as a barrier between Neon and Ben. Though, Neon was a lot less twitchy around Ben than he’d been even the day before. It was really impressive actually; or it was if Rex didn’t think about how little time it’d actually taken.

Rex nodded to the Mando as they passed and they did the same nod he’d seen Fett do.

Then, he got caught by the walls. They were duracrete, the same golden sandstone color as the formations out in the wastes. And all the way up and down the hallway, there were line-ink style drawings of Tatooinian (at least Rex thought they were Tatooinian) animals with Mandalorian animals, symbols, and script hidden in them. He could see jai’galaars, manticores, pterosaurs, jaig eyes, kyr’beses, and stathases worked through everything. The ceiling was covered in diagrams of constellations and lit with lights that looked like little flames. Rex only snapped out of it when Neon drifted to the side to look at an eopie with jaig eyes hidden inside and flowing Mando’a script that spelt out names winding through the shading of the shadows.

As they walked down the hallway, Rex saw locks that were too much like Silas’ handiwork for it to be a coincidence and he could feel how the Force wasn’t quite settled into a pattern yet like the other places they’d been. It was still learning the rhythms of the people living inside. No matter how much art was on the walls or how long it looked like they’d been there, it was still fluid.

Ejasa felt more at home than any of the others. Rex could feel the comfort from Ben and Silas at where they were. But Silas felt like himself, which meant he felt kind of like those hummingbird things that never stopped moving or wanting to move. Ben almost felt wistful, something longing under the comfort and safety.

“Have you been here before?” Neon whispered.

“No, this is new. But it’s safe.” Rex could feel that in his bones, the solidity and security of the place, a hundred beings willing to kill and die to keep it that way even if nobody said so out loud.

Neon nodded, movements tiny enough that they were almost invisible. He was dressed like a local, just like Rex was, and he’d put on a hood that hid his face. He seemed like he was almost more interested in the art on the walls and the ridiculous amount of doors than he was nervous about being around a bunch of beings he didn’t know in a place he didn’t know. That or maybe he was feeling a bit more stable that day. Rex couldn’t tell, but he was glad for it anyway. Peace was worth its weight in beskar.

They hung a right at the end of the hallway and walked into a circular room filled with at least seventy beings ranging from Twi’lek to Zabrak, all with their faces covered. Some had on armor, some didn’t, everyone was armed, and they were all giving the being in the middle their space.

The person in the middle was standing on a platform and was still a bit shorter than some of the other beings in the room. Their helmet looked a little like the holos of ancient Mandalorian helmets Rex had seen when Stacks had been in the middle of his mythology phase. They were the only being with maroon on their armor, black stathas on their left pauldron, just like the Abiik-Kemirs except the color. Black streaks cut across their chestplate and there was an honest to Force sword hanging from a sheath on their belt.

Granted, that was less weird than lightsabers in the Outer Rim, but the thing looked old, maybe even decorative. Except that wasn’t how Mandalorians did things, even Rex knew that. He looked away after a few seconds, following the Abiik-Kemirs into the thick of the room.

He kept Neon sandwiched between him and Silas as they moved through the crowd. There were conversations happening everywhere. Rex saw a lot of different crests on the right pauldrons. Nobody with a Greater Krayt like the Abiik-Kemirs. Actually, nobody at all with the same crest except for a bare few who were always clustered together. Clan groups probably, but there were so many of them. The ones he saw were all in the line-ink art too.

Not everyone had a stathas either. There were kyr’beses, Mandalorian diamonds, even an ancient Mandalorian raiding symbol here or there. There were also flashes of green, black, and gold hidden somewhere on all of the beings who were wearing their beskar’gam. Whatever color wasn’t somewhere else on their beskar, that was what would be hidden somewhere.

The whole room was filled with the same driven, focused energy Rex associated with groups of brothers. It made him feel vaguely homesick, which he pushed under the observation and keeping Neon and the Abiik-Kemirs in his line of sight at all times.

“Order.” The person on the platform called and everyone instantly fell silent and came to the middle where a holotable activated.

The only being without their face covered came right next to the (apparent) leader. They were human, around the same age as Rex thought Silas might be, and their eyes looked like Bins’ did when he spent days staring at holodisplays. The mostly professional facade cracked a little, something warm in their eyes as they gave the Abiik-Kemirs a near invisible smile; the same warmth echoed back from around the bond.

“We have enough information to form our final plan of attack. But before we begin, we must commemorate Nlora. She went in service to try and assist the members of the Arkanis stronghold in coming here and made the ultimate sacrifice to protect them.”

The leader put the beskar Rex and the Abiik-Kemirs had taken off the ship on the table and the responding wave of anger and sadness tore through the Force like a tidal wave. Ejasa flinched like she’d been punched and Ben and Silas snapped forward in the Force, shields folding around hers before Rex could even respond. She smoothed over them after a few seconds but neither of them backed off.

“She will be painted onto our walls, and I know that her name will be remembered by us all. Ret’uryce mhi, Nlora; jate taab.”

“Jate taab.” Everyone echoed the leader somberly, standing at attention as the leader passed the bricks of beskar to someone next to them in gold and scarlet painted armor.

The being in gold bowed as they took the beskar, and as soon as it was out of the room, the leader continued.

“Now, we have a few things to discuss, so I’ll begin with the more minor ones first. We have not gone unnoticed, and one of Jabba’s enforcers has been sniffing around our doors. Everyone has to be especially cautious. We do not want to draw any unwanted or undue attention before we are prepared to enter the final phase of our plan. With so many of us in one place, the consequences of being detected now would be catastrophic. So be certain to use the back ways and try to just wear cloth unless it’s either absolutely necessary or it would be more noticeable for you not to.”

There was a quick exchange between the Abiik-Kemirs that was more feeling than words that Rex didn’t even try to decipher, sticking to listening to the whispers around them instead.

“I know that we all find this Republic war being fought in our backyards distasteful and disturbing. However, it would be best to not attract the Republic’s attention before we are finished and ready to deal with them however necessary. Clan Abiik-Kemir has drawn their attention away from us as a whole, but even they are not attention grabbing enough to distract from an entire enclave of unknown Mandalorians appearing on a backwater in the middle of nowhere so nearby where the war started and we are not equipped to deal with them and the Hutts at the same time. So keep your buckets to yourselves, please.” The last few sentences were so dry the air felt even more parched than it already had.

There was an uncomfortable sort of shift through the Force at the mention of the Republic and Rex could sense just how much Ejasa had undersold their feelings about it in the ripples. Neon was peering around at everyone and Rex could feel the eyes that were hidden under buckets, hoods, and masks on him and his brother. He didn’t think that he sensed any hostility, but he wasn’t sure about that, or at least not sure enough to let Neon out of his sight anytime soon.

“Finally, Kitster Banai has discovered our point of entry for the start of final phase of the plan.”

At this, the leader stepped away and let Banai take their place.

He nodded to everyone before he started. “So, there are a lot of points of entry into Jabba’s Palace and security detail. The problems were first, that most of the security in the place is Gamorrean; and second, Jabba has gotten increasingly paranoid ever since the Twi’lek uprising and the Boonta Eve Run.”

Rex felt like he’d been struck by lightning. The Boonta Eve Attacks were infamous. Everyone knew that it was a massive, coordinated operation, but there were so many different groups, species, and even clans involved that nobody knew whose idea it’d been in the first place. It had been the biggest non-military offensive, the biggest offensive period, that had ever been brought against the Hutt Empire, second only to the one against Zygerrians. Nobody had ever taken credit, and both the Hutts and the Republic had ruled that anyone involved would face either death or a life sentence, respectively.

It made sense; that was undeniable. And the reasoning behind it, well, after what Rex had seen it seemed more like a revolt than whatever the Hutts had called it. He was sure that there was way more to what had happened than that sort of oversimplification made it look like. Even the actual tactics of it were pretty clear about that. It had been a series of simultaneous battles, not a strike. They hadn’t even made any demands or taken advantage of the public’s feelings about it afterwards. They’d all just disappeared back into the woodwork, never to be seen all together again. At least publicly, anyway.

Neon’s anxiety spiked through the Force, but underneath it, he was steadier than ever and Rex started to get a fuzzy idea of what the vod would be capable of when he got his feet under him. The Force didn’t offer anymore clarity about anything, but in the months he’d been training, that wasn’t exactly new with something like that.

Color Rex _incredibly_ surprised at how helpful it was, Light or Dark.

“-so I dug a little deeper. It turns out, that Jabba has a taste for killing his enforcers when they piss him off or he’s bored that left a pretty significant trail on what passed for a payroll. Our way in is through the enforcer route. Enforcers who impress him are given access to every part of the Palace we’d need access to, and they’re close enough to kill him before he can make trouble for the main assault teams.” Rex tuned back in to hear Banai finish.

Banai stepped back to let the leader speak again.

“We’ve already chosen the infiltration team. Banai will be running point on the external slicing and intelligence fronts and he will recruit as necessary.”

There was a wash of pleased surprise and pride from the Abiik-Kemirs as Banai nodded.

“Dia Jab will be coordinating with her people to try and get as many of her best inside as possible. She will also be coordinating with the person who will be going in on Kitster’s route as a fallback plan in case anything goes wrong on their end. Xiann Me will be on her party as well, coordinating with Kitster to run the slicing operation on the inside.”

A hot pink Twi’lek woman in the same full length, face covering garb as everybody else stepped up next to Kitster and bumped his elbow while an older sunset orange woman with incredibly long lekku, a collar scar around her neck, and a face that was way too kind looking for the discussion took a spot next to the leader.

“The outer offensive will be led by Ejasa Abiik-Kemir and the internal will be led by Dia Jab as well. The strike aimed specifically at Jabba is still yet to be determined, but we have our options in place.”

Ejasa took her place next to Jab and Rex was left wondering what Ejasa meant about the Alor wanting to help, how far that would go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Ka'ra-Stars  
> Vode-Brothers/Siblings  
> Vod’ikase-Little Brothers/Siblings  
> Alor-Leader  
> Bic jate gana gar norac, Shmi-It’s good to have you back, Shmi  
> Mhi ruga baat on’tuu akaan ba’sol-We got worried when the war started  
> Ogir ru jetii ba’acyk-There was Jedi interference  
> Val kar’tayli-They know  
> Shi cuun dinui, ibic yaim morut’yc-Only our gift, this home is safe  
> Ni eparavur takisit par tion rucuyi hiib-I apologize for what was taken  
> Mhi slana bat-We go on  
> Te Tsad Droten evaar’la re’aru-The Republic is a new issue  
> Gar sinii-You mean  
> Tion mhi nari-What can we do  
> Ni ven’rehojaa’i gar tion’tuur ni kartayl-I’ll tell you when I know  
> Bal gar evaar’la adat-And your new person?  
> Ven’cuyi payt bah kaysh’copad-Will be left to his own desire (will, want)  
> Troch-Certainly (archaic)  
> Aruetiiyc demagolkase-Traitorous real life monsters  
> Aliit-Family/Clan  
> Osik-Shit  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Aruetiise-In this case, Enemies  
> Buir-Mother/Parent  
> Cabur-Guardian  
> Haran-Hell  
> Bic munit goyust at Lianna-It’s a long road to Lianna  
> Na bat Firebird’norac-Not on a Firebird’s back  
> Yaim’la-At home, comfortable  
> Jai’galaar-Shriek Hawk  
> Ret’uryce mhi, Nlora; jate taab-Goodbye, Nlora; good march
> 
> Hey, so let me know how the Mando’a conversation worked for you! Personally I like to actually have whatever language is in there written out if possible; it feels weird to just say ‘in whatever language’ and write out English instead. But I know that it’s a lot to go between the notes and everything else while reading, so if it doesn’t work, let me know and I’ll see what I can do the next time there’s a chapter like this. A Stathas is a Mandalorian reptile known for using its harmless appearance to lure prey into a false sense of security before it strikes. Perfect for a bunch of Mandalorian freedom fighters hiding in plain sight.


	25. A Glimpse of the Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaak Ti and Fives hear and see things that make them start wondering about what's happening

It was, once again, far later than Shaak usually stayed awake. The still-incoming reports about the Malevolence had unsettled her far more than she had expected them to. Meditation had steadied her nerves, but not her mind, not the ever increasing worry for where the lives the men who left Kamino would lead. What their deaths might look like in far too little time played over every new shade of moral issue or failing she found. How she had taken to wandering Tipoca was slightly fuzzy. However, she had come to the room the Kaminoans always made a concerted effort to keep her and any other Jedi away from.

Vos had been quite correct. Inside the old medbay, the air of erasure was still present, even after so many years having passed since it had occurred.

That was the room where Obi-Wan Kenobi had died.

The Force felt scarred; the Darkness that had killed his spirit was gone, but such an act was not without cosmic consequence. And Shaak could feel the echoes of those consequences in the too-silent dullness of the Force within. It was strange for a room to appear so normal and yet feel so empty. It wasn’t just what had been done to Obi-Wan. Someone had deliberately tried to make it appear as though nothing of note had happened. Or had at least attempted to obscure what had been done and leave it as a mystery.

In the rush to train Fives and the mystery of the clones, Obi-Wan had been forgotten again.

Shaak’s chest felt as hollow as the Force as she hovered a hand over the slab-like table in the middle of the room. There weren’t any tools other than the overhead lights and scanners that every operation-type medbay or theater required. The room smelled like cleanser and antiseptic, hints of bleach underneath the perfume that were dull enough that even Shaak struggled to identify them. It didn’t even smell musty. But it had the same air inside as a crypt.

She finally let her hand rest on the table and wondered grimly what visions Vos would be subject to should he dare to touch it again. His face had been like that of someone who had seen something that would darken their soul to the day they died when she had asked him what had been recorded in the same surface her hand was resting on. Even more grimly, she wondered if Ben bore any of the memories of that room. Perhaps it was truly kinder that he could not remember most of what had been done to him. What he had been forced to do to others, to his own clanmates.

Perhaps that was kinder. But it meant that Obi-Wan would be left forgotten in that crypt. That his death, his torture, what he had been put through would be replicated, playing out in ripples and cracks across the Force in the shape of the men whose lives she was charged with shaping into weapons. It had already been replicated, hadn’t it? On a vast scale, on beings who would never know that that was not how things were meant to be.

Shaak had never been one to struggle under the weight of guilt. There were, of course, things she regretted in her life. There was not a single being alive, no matter how well connected to the Force they may be, that had not done something they regretted. But she had learned early on from her own master that carrying guilt around was akin to wearing durasteel weights in water. Eventually, no matter how strong she was, the weights would drown her. The letting go had not been an easy thing to learn to do. But she had mastered it, and had earned the title of Master for it many years later.

She had managed to outrun it through sheer volume of work. But such was the nature of life: there were peaks and valleys and one could not hide within their work forever unless they wished to die at their desk.

The real question, regardless of a truly shameful amount of circular thought and avoidance for one such as herself, was what Shaak was to do with that guilt. Durasteel was useful, and to allow it to sink was wasteful. Guilt was useful in the same way that any sort of pain was useful. It was an indicator that something was wrong and needed to be corrected. And the beginning of that correction had already been set in motion as far as the Council. As isolated as she was, any sort of action for change was going to take time.

There was still very little she could do to help the men without either trying to take the entire of Tipoca herself or going into full and blatant rebellion against the Council, either case meaning that one would very quickly follow the other. If only she had been able to speak with Commander Cody properly about the man who had left the 212th. If one of them had managed to leave, surely it must be possible for others. Force Sensitivity wasn’t the defining asset that would allow a being to be able to get out of a situation like theirs. The Outer Rim was full of beings who proved that. Shaak had a feeling there was more to that story that hinged on the men who had stayed than the rumors she had heard indicated. That choice was one that mattered, that choice to stick together and get someone who was actively in danger out.

Realistically speaking, the only way to know what would be right for Ben Abiik-Kemir would be to ask him. The only way to know what Obi-Wan Kenobi would want was to ask Ben Abiik-Kemir and hope that he remembered enough to tell them what Obi-Wan would have wanted. That was not something Shaak had the stomach to do, even if she had had the access to do so. That along with the added complication of his family and what had been done to them souring any chance at any sort of diplomacy beyond the barest of agreements mostly made for the sake of another being who had slipped through the cracks in the Order.

Silas Abiik-Kemir. His midichlorian count had caused one of the most childish displays of emotional decision making Shaak had ever seen from her fellow Council members. She hadn’t thought about what it might mean. Since she had reached Kamino, she hadn’t had the time or room to spend mulling over the potential repercussions of the Chosen One potentially being a literal prophecy about a real being who was alive and had been, to put it mildly, severely wronged by the beings he was meant to help. Before then she had been more focused on Ejasa and Ben. Silas had fallen under Vokara’s domain, and though vocally and vehemently opposed to the ruling (and having voted Nay herself), she had complied with what the Council had ordered her to do. Nobody had dared test her temper and oaths further by trying to crack what remained of the boy’s shields and see what patchwork of teachings and experience had turned him into who he was.

Ben had a family. He had been taken in by a people who were meant to be extremely hostile to Force Sensitives. He had been welcomed by Force Sensitives of that same people. His brother was possibly the most powerful living Force Sensitive in the galaxy. That was not a coincidence. The odds of him running into the Abiik-Kemirs were so astronomically small it was nigh unbelievable. And yet, he had, and that reeked of destiny almost as much as the room Shaak was still standing in felt of emptiness.

Perhaps a different perspective would be best.

///

“Have you heard?” Cutup’s signature was dimmer than Fives thought it could ever get.

His nightmare played in front of him while Droidbait asked what could’ve brought Cutup down so fast.

“It’s the 104th. They’re dead. Less than a fifth of them left. They don’t even know if they’re going to keep calling it the 104th when they put the replacements together.”

Something snapped in Fives’ head.

“That’s bantha shavit. They’re the 104th! There’s no way-“

“This one’s as real as Fives’ osik; I’m telling you, they’re _dead_. Everyone but some of the original Canidae and Canis. The Wolfpack is gone.” Cutup snapped quietly.

Shock settled over the four of them in a flash-burst like a droidpopper going off.

“Did-did you hear how?” ‘Bait asked the question that Fives had been about to.

“No. Maybe Hevy will hear something about it from 99, but I don’t think so. All I heard is that they’re going to be assigning all of us to the 104th now. Everyone who’s already graduated is getting thrown in. Our entire age-group basically.”

“But-“

“Look at how few of us graduated and how high the casualty rate is. If Cutup’s right, that’s the only thing that explains why we haven’t been shipped out already.” Echo cut in.

After another pause, Cutup looked around furtively before he asked, “Fives, have you, you know, heard anything?”

Fives’ hands clenched on his drawer before he could stop them and he breathed the tension into the Force. Or at least he tried to.

“I had a dream about something like that. If it’s right, if I’m right. You’re probably right, Cutup. We’re not going to that outpost any way it happens.”

“Kriff.” Cutup looked down at his hands, almost green.

“I thought you didn’t want to get assigned to an outpost.”

Sometimes, Fives wondered how one of them hadn’t strangled Echo yet.

“I didn’t-don’t-whatever. I didn’t want to get out of it like this, vod! Kriff!”

“Someone’s coming.” It was General Ti.

Cutup, Echo, and ‘Bait all straightened up and acted like they hadn’t been talking about anything important while Fives climbed down from his drawer. They got to just in time for General Ti to step into view from around the corner of their shelf. She looked like she wasn’t bothered by anything, but there was something off about the Force around her that Fives couldn’t quite figure out.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. Might I borrow Fives for a moment?” The question was addressed to Echo who looked like he might swallow his tongue before he could answer.

Right, he still hadn’t talked to General Ti since after Fives’ collapse on the test.

“Sure. We don’t have anything on our roster today.” Cutup saved him.

General Ti nodded. She made the tiny facial tic that meant that Fives should follow her and walked off towards. Actually, Fives had no idea what she wanted in the middle of the day when there were plenty of longnecks to be suspicious about why she was singling him out. They were supposed to train that night too.

They wound up in General Ti’s office with a mysterious lack of run-ins with longnecks to show for it.

“I had some questions for you. I probably should have asked them sooner, but there was a lot for us to cover and not nearly enough time to do so,” General Ti said after a suspiciously thorough sweep for bugs.

“Of course, General.” What could she possibly want to know that he had access to and she didn’t?

“The Kaminoans have been…opaque about how they train you for certain things. We know that they do not perform midichlorian tests, but how they teach you to identify Sith, work with us, what you’re taught about the Republic beyond loyalty. I’ve attempted to investigate these on my own. But I’ve been redirected each time to something pressing that cannot wait until later.” If her eyebrows hadn’t told Fives what she thought of that, the derisive tone hiding under her normal, peaceful speech would’ve.

Ouch.

“You know about the holos.” He was pretty sure he’d mentioned the holos at least once.

“Yes, but I’ve never been allowed access to them beyond observing training sessions where there is always a Kaminoan in the room.”

How had they managed that?

“Oh. They’re mostly lightsaber katas and demonstrations against training remotes and droids. What to expect from your General and how to identify different forms so that we can work with and around them better.”

“I see.” The Force went quiet around her.

“They also cover telekinesis, the enhancement stuff, all of that. Not any of the extra-sensory stuff, though. That’s all just explained pretty much. It doesn’t really translate on holo, I guess.” Fives babbled, nervous all of the sudden.

“No. I suppose it wouldn’t. It is mostly an internal process.”

“We didn’t used to get told anything about Hibir, really. But a few years ago, when most of the current Command were already through, they started trying to scare us away from him. They would tell us that he was dangerous and defective and stuff like that. The older ones passed on what they heard about him and now you’re either scared of him, don’t really care, or land somewhere in between. But we don’t actually know that much about him past that he’s supposed to be like us. One of their products, you know?”

Something sharp went through the Force too fast for Fives to catch and General Ti’s face was too still for him to pick anything up from that angle either.

“I see. What do they teach you about the Republic?”

“Our job is to protect it and its citizens at all costs. Beyond that and what planets are in it, not much.”

“Hmm.” General Ti folded her hands on her desk and Fives could almost hear her thinking. “And what do they say about your training to you?”

Okay. “Nothing. We’re to follow orders to the order, without question mostly. It’s about us learning to do that as efficiently as possible. ARC training is where they get into thinking for yourself from what I’ve heard.”

“That fits with what I’ve seen. And the Sith?”

“Basically Sith are the enemy, they use red lightsabers, and if you see them, shoot.” Fives had heard something about yellow eyes and a lot of brothers had theories about why Hibir would have yellow eyes if he was supposed to be a Kaminoan production.

“That’s not enough information. I’m assuming those holos don’t show you anything else that you can use to identify them either.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s enough for now, I think. Do you have any questions for me before I let you go?”

Where and when were they being deployed? “No, sir.”

“Alright. Thank you for your time, Fives.”

“Yes, sir. No problem.”

When Fives was almost out the door, he remembered something. “They do say that we’re a more refined version of what he was supposed to be. Not going after the Jedi, but the training and the following orders and things like that. Or, at least they used to. If the older ones aren’t trying something anyway.”

The Force went completely still again.

“Oh. Thank you, Fives. Are you still clear for training?”

“I should be.”

“In that case, I’ll see you then.”

///

What had changed, what was different in Rancor? What was different in Domino? The answer to those questions was where the truth about their purpose lay, Shaak could feel it. She was able to trace their movements up until the last minute testing session Rancor had pulled in Domino for. After that, it was all a mystery as to where they had been right until they’d been returned. All a little more woozy for the wear, but all perfectly fine and fundamentally altered in a way that was so subtle that she hadn’t been able to parse what specifically was different, even after meditating with Fives.

Shaak ghosted around the corner, waiting for whoever it was to pass. The absurdity of sneaking around the place like a youngling was not lost on her. On the other hand, her stealth skills had been sorely lacking for opportunities to practice. That did not mean that she enjoyed doing so in circumstances such as those.

The room was still exactly the way Shaak, Fives, and Vos had left it the last time they’d been there. Shaak looked at the wall of cubes and her stomach turned over. It was so Dark she felt the corruption on her shields just being in the same room with it.

Darkness corrupted and dominated. Such was its nature. Those who were practitioners of the Dark did the same. That was what she had been taught since before she had truly been capable of understanding anything about the Force beyond that it was the warmth and and life around her.

They knew that Obi-Wan had been subjected to torture, electroshock based memory alteration, Force based memory alteration, and conditioning to trigger phrases using a combination of those methods. They also knew from Vos’ visions and their discoveries (Fives had been vital) that the Dark had been used by someone skilled in its ways at every step in order to ensure that the corruption, conditioning, and erasure would be complete. The intention from the start had been to create Hibir. But what was the point of stripping a padawan of all their knowledge? What was the point of hunting Jedi with such a being? Or had Ben been used more like a surgical tool as Hibir? Targeted strikes at whatever the Sith were trying to destroy.

Where did the men fit into it?

Fives’ last minute addition had set something off in Shaak’s mind. ‘Not to target the Jedi’, but how would he know that for certain? Why would a man like Jango Fett, who by all accounts felt the same about Jedi and Force Sensitives as most traditional Mandalorians, volunteer to create an army specifically for the Order? It made less and less sense the more she thought about it. And the more she considered it, the more alarmed she felt. If the men were truly meant to be a more streamlined version of Hibir, then it was likely that they had the same sort of trigger-phrase system built into them somehow. And given how long the Kaminoans had had between Hibir’s creation and the decanting of the first modified clones, there were far too many ways and far too much time for them to have created and implemented a more streamlined, invisible system that didn’t require the Force that even the men themselves wouldn’t be aware of until it was too late.

///

The training sessions were stilted and felt almost like the longnecks were looking for a way to keep them occupied than to actually teach them anything. It didn’t really keep anybody from talking, but that would be like trying to drink Kamino. It wasn’t going to happen. Still, it was better than sitting around waiting for them to officially say yes, the 104th is dead, and yes, you’re replacing them. So Fives stuck with the rest of Domino as much as possible and kept his head down, his mouth shut, and his ears out for the things that were spreading around completely unhindered and unimpeded by the extra training and eyes.

There were a lot more eyes on them. Even Cutup was keeping quiet for once, with all the beings that were overseeing the things they were doing. There was something uncomfortable, off somehow with everything in the Force. It was really slight, at least to Fives. It’d probably be really obvious to an actual jetii, but it was almost like everything was tilted just the littlest bit to the left or something. Like the ground wasn’t really level or like the building was listing or something. Fives kept halfway expecting for them to get sent somewhere else or get shot at more than they already were. But none of that happened. Instead, they waited for the longnecks to tell them things they already knew while going through a million and one different training exercises and drills.

“It’s all bantha-shavit anyway. From what I’ve heard, the Seppies were so close to the Spine that Coruscant was basically kriffed if they’d decided to go that way,” said one of the guys from Beta.

“Don’t be kriffing stupid,” said the brother Fives didn’t know as he fired at an incoming commando. “Coruscant basically has a floating fortress around it, even without the on-planet defense system. The Seppies aren’t stupid enough to think they can get through that, even with whatever weapon they had. They were never going to go there anyway, idiot.”

The commando went down with the kind of ear-splitting clang that meant it was too close in the first place.

“Well I don’t see anyone else with anything any more solid than that,” Beta said defensively.

“Maybe it was just bad luck.” Fives spent too much time with Cutup, that was the problem.

“You’re even dumber than he is. It wasn’t luck at all. It was bad planning by a shavit general, and that’s all it was. Run!”

All three of them charged to the next permacrete wall, dodging durasteel rebar that stuck out like some kind of skeleton.

Fives reached out as soon as they were covered and found the rest of Domino. All of them were still in the game, surprisingly. They’d gotten separated earlier than usual. There was something else that felt almost like smoke, but it drifted away so fast, was so faint that Fives thought it could just be the vapors from the stunner rounds. He shook his head and got back into it just in time to hear Beta threaten to throw the other brother into the open field.

“All I’m saying is that it’s stupid to think we know anything besides the 104th is dead and the ship they went after went down with them. That’s all. You go ahead and think what you want, brother. That’s your business.” The brother rolled his eyes as he took down a B1.

Beta muttered a curse. “Whatever.”

Fives took down a commando, feeling the shot as it went and sensing one of the other Dominoes trying to get to their little group. He popped back down, more smoke in his lungs. He breathed, pulled his shields back together, switched his charge pack out, and got back up in time to take down an approaching pack of B1s. They were throwing more at all of them than usual too.

“Nice shot,” Beta said grudgingly.

Fives nodded, more occupied with keeping his senses on their surroundings and ‘Bait as he and his own little group made their way over.

It was another few seconds before ‘Bait and three other brothers ducked behind the wall with them. ‘Bait tucked himself between Fives and Beta as the others squished in around them. He had carbon scoring from a glancing shot on his shoulder and Fives was surprised they hadn’t counted that as a disqualification, as relived as he was to have a squadmate with him. ‘Bait gave him a rueful look and shrugged the shoulder, wincing as he did.

“Tinny got closer than I realized.” ‘Bait switched out his charge pack.

“Anybody know where the lieutenant is?” One of ‘Bait’s group asked.

“No, I-“

Fives tuned out after a nod from Bait and stretched again. Surge wasn’t the most familiar, but he thought, maybe, he had enough of a handle that it might just work… Stretching out in the middle of all that supposedly controlled chaos wasn’t doing Fives’ senses any favors, but after what felt like way too long, he had someone that might just be Surge. He was ninety percent sure it was Surge.

“I think I know where he is. I heard some comm chatter about the South tower earlier.” Fives cut off whoever was talking.

There was a moment of silence and then Beta stepped up. “Better than nothing. Besides, it looks like the tinnies aren’t as bad that way. Not as many heavy gunners.”

And they went in a tight formation, Beta in the lead with a Z-6, Fives and Grumpy at his sides, ‘Bait bringing up the rear with the others in between. Fives kept stretched out, that smoke still filling his lungs. But it didn’t matter. He could feel the bolts in the air, the strength flowing through his body and taking the strain of the hours they’d been training off his muscles, he could even _hear_ the commandos coming over the sounds of continuous fire and things blowing up and coming down around their buckets. Like they were louder than everything else. His heart skipped beats with the anxiety of collapsing like he did during the Citadel but his head barely even hurt and he felt rock solid.

“Watch out!” Fives pushed Grumpy out of the way faster than he could blink and the bolt went over their heads in the same second Fives took a shot he knew would miss.

Beta didn’t miss, though, spray of fire ripping up the duracrete around them and throwing dust so fine it looked like smoke in the waning ‘sunlight’ of the room. Fives felt the ripples of that spread as he pulled Grumpy to his feet while the man behind them covered their backs. There were eyes on them from the observation areas hidden behind the one-way transparisteel. He could feel it, and so could the others.

They made it to a half-destroyed wall that looked like it’d been some kind of synthetic crystal or something.

“I’m out of power.” Beta peered around the edge of the wall as another droid popper went off.

“We’re almost to the South tower though. Just one more sprint should do it. I think Surge is on the off side.” Now that they were closer, Fives knew it was Surge and knew exactly where he was too.

“That’s what it sounds like,” ‘Bait said, fingers on his comm to flip through.

Beta shook his head. “Alright. Then we just have to push through. All the orders are being put through him and he’s not using the comms for whatever kriffing reason. We go in fifteen seconds. Do what you need to do.”

Fives gulped down the last of his water trying to get the taste of smoke out of his mouth and the dust out of his throat. The filters on his bucket weren’t working right, apparently, and he felt a little like he was on a desert planet or something with all the fine shavit trying to choke him.

“Get together.”

Canteen stowed, blaster in hand, right behind Beta and next to Grumpy with ‘Bait still bringing up the rear.

“Go!”

It was a lot harder without the Z-6. There was an almost palpable pressure to the droids closing in, even though they didn’t feel like anything in the Force to Fives at all. The hail of bolts was thicker and there was an undercurrent of _fasterfasterfaster_ under and through everything that made Fives feel even more off balance than he already did. He gritted his teeth and pushed through, sinking into the Force and feeling the shift as his hands fell right where they needed to be. He was in time with the others, could feel them around him, different than just Domino, but still driving for the tower just like every other time he’d felt for his squadmates while they were working for something.

The tower was forever away, accented by blaster fire, the recoil of his own blaster, plasma supercharging the air as it flew past, and his own breathing and heartbeat so loud in his ears he almost wondered if he’d been injured and hadn’t noticed.

He came back when they were at the tower, the long path between the melted wall and the tower between them and the group still intact and gasping for air. ‘Bait was at Fives’ elbow and Fives realized he was leaning half of his weight on his brother when he tried to stand on his own and his legs turned to gel. ‘Bait gave him a concerned look that he masked by handing over his canteen. Fives nodded, looking at the brothers around them out of the corners of his eyes. Beta had gone right over to Surge and Grumpy was still with the rest of them, looking across the path they’d ran.

The rest of Domino wasn’t there. Actually, Surge’s group was pretty ragtag too, and had gotten ambushed earlier according to Surge. The orders were to stop the Seppies from broadcasting any more without blowing up the tower, but they didn’t have anyone capable of messing with the systems. They had also faced such heavy resistance going in that Surge had been forced to retreat.

“I’ve got some droid poppers. Maybe we could get them to swarm and toss one right in the middle?” ‘Bait offered after they were all brought up to speed.

“Good plan, Domino. Except who’s going up front?”

“Me.” Fives had definitely been spending too much time with Hevy and Cutup.

“Right-“

“And me, sir.” Beta volunteered.

“I’m not sacrificing our only heavy gunner, idiot. The others can’t get enough together to push through to the tower even if they knew where I was. No. Whatsyourname and Onith can go. Since we have no better options, and I know Onith squad does that kind of shavit anyway.”

Grumpy scowled, but didn’t argue and Fives tried to pretend he didn’t see the look ‘Bait was giving him.

“The second we go around that set of pillars, we’re going to get swarmed anyway. May as well make it worth something.” Surge concluded grimly.

Another thirty seconds, and Fives and Grumpy were getting ready to charge around the pillars and trusting ‘Bait to get them out of trouble.

“This is stupid.” Grumpy was staring at his blaster.

“Yeah. It is.”

Grumpy eyed Fives before he went back to checking his blaster.

Surge signed for them to go and the two of them ran around the pillars.

It was kind of like the holos of bees or wasps or something like that. At first it was just one or two droids coming for them. But in seconds, the damned things swarmed out of the stairwell they were guarding, fire coming in so fast Fives felt overloaded by the input. His eyes were on fire and all he could hear was blaster fire and metal feet pounding on permacrete covered durasteel. He was getting low on charge already.

A bright flash went off and fried the backs of Fives’ eyes. Metal crashed to the ground around them, but the swarm kept coming, even as they blindly pressed the advantage. Fives was sure that the only reason he managed to stick to Grumpy was feeling him in the Force, even with the too-loud input.

Fives managed to close his eyes for the next popper, metal still loud in his ears as the next swarm came. The Force was flooding through him like a stimshot. He closed down the outward part, feeling the headache creep in, only keeping out enough to keep track of Grumpy. Still, they moved forward, and another swarm came. Even with the Force, Fives was just a little too slow, and Grumpy went down with a sharp cry and a hit of pain in the Force that Fives almost tripped over.

The swarm was smaller. But Fives still caught a blast as a cloud of fire from his brothers came up behind him. It seared over his senses, but he was still awake as he laid on the ground. It’d hit one of the joints in his armor. Somehow, knowing that they were about to be deployed made it feel almost surreal. Before, it’d been upsetting to get hit. But it hadn’t felt like he was lucky to be alive after he went down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Osik-Shit  
> Vod-Brother/Sibling  
> Jetii-Jedi


	26. Interplanetary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kamino to Coruscant to Tatooine to Hyperspace

The clouds that made up Kamino’s sky roiled under the Resolute, cloud-to-cloud lightning strikes stretching kilometers visible from their orbit above. Wolffe had managed to pull close enough into himself through the voyage that he wasn’t so hypersensitive anymore. He could still feel the echoes of the things he was supposed to be sensing pressed against him like deep water. General Koon was late to go down to the hangar. That didn’t really mean that much in the scheme of things, but everything felt like a bad sign after the Malevolence.

He pulled up the files about Domino on his pad. It’d finally come through, but there were new notes. Something about Fives specifically showing signs of being way ahead of where he’d been on the curve the whole time. If Wolffe went back far enough, he was sure he’d be able to pick out exactly when the brother had started to learn to use the Force properly. The latest exercises had been pushing all the shinies way harder than they should’ve been since they were shipping out so soon. And the strain was showing up in increasingly weird displays of physical capability that it looked like Fives was just pulling out of his shebs.

Wolffe hadn’t told General Koon about him.

To be fair, Wolffe hadn’t talked about his own problem with General Koon either, but that was a different issue. Cody had made it pretty clear that the brother didn’t even have the option to hide and that his batchmates were shavit for keeping it quiet too. The problem wasn’t General Koon knowing. The problem was that General Ti was the one teaching Fives. That meant that even with his chip out, Fives and the rest of his squad were security risks until they were sure that she didn’t have any ulterior motive, any real knowledge of the chips. And that meant waiting for General Koon to figure it out unfortunately.

Wolffe sighed and made his way to the turbolift. He’d be going outside once they were given a clear window to get through anyway. The crew from the Insight were jittery and kept not-so-subtly rushing to get back to the rest of the 212th. The comparison between them and the tattered remains of the 104th just made the damage from the Malevolence stand out that much more against the shadows under everybody’s eyes. The shinies weren’t going to fix that. Actually, they’d probably make it even sharper, but there it was.

Trace was already in the hangar. He was glaring around at their new mini fleet of fighters and gunships, specifically at the brand new Aethersprite. It still had its factory colors and looked as sterile and dead as everything else. That wouldn’t last long. Actually, it would last about as long as it took to scuff up the shinies’ armor.

“The pilots’ scores are terrible,” Trace said flatly.

“Everyone’s scores are down the shoots; they’ve been working them to death.” And who knew why _that_ was.

Trace shook his head. “They’re going to get ripped like flimsi the second we get into anything more than a minor engagement.”

The disgust was palpable and Wolffe looked around for General Koon before he said anything.

“Then we have to get them up to code.” At least Tidal was still alive to help with the other part of it.

Trace snorted. “Good kriffing luck.”

“At least Ridge is still around.”

Trace snorted again, but Wolffe caught a twitch of the tiniest hint of a smile.

“How helpful.”

Wolffe felt the foreign twitch at the corners of his mouth, a miracle.

“What’s the plan with the general?”

Wolffe’s chest squeezed a bit. “He’s agreed to keep quiet and he’s going to look into General Ti before he trusts whatever she’s turned up.”

Not that any of them knew what she’d found so far.

“At least we have one thing nailed down.” Trace’s sarcasm bit into the empty air around them, awkward in the not-actual-silence of the never-ending bustle of the hangar.

“Rancor knows what’s going on.”

“Thank the gods for small miracles then.”

“No shavit.” Wolffe shook his head and pulled even further into himself, resolutely ignoring the accompanying headache.

Trace eyed him and Wolffe ignored the worry that still seeped into him, despite his best efforts.

“It’s fine.” Wolffe didn’t like the defensiveness under his tone, but it was too late to fix it.

“Yes sir, Commander.” Trace looked unimpressed.

Commander Tano’s advice reared its head again and Wolffe squashed it flat. It wasn’t something he wanted to be normal for him. Wolffe knew that was an idiot’s approach to that kind of thing, but it felt so intrinsically wrong, something instinctive. Like trying to breath water. It worked for someone who wasn’t him. He wasn’t equipped for that.

“We’ve been cleared to descend.” General Koon broke through and Wolffe snapped to attention along with Trace.

///

Fives’ stomach churned. He felt the others’ nerves vibrating with his and he almost couldn’t stand still with the tension. The ARCs had pulled them aside last minute without explaining why and getting pulled aside was never a good thing with stuff like what they were facing down. Everyone had disappeared as soon as they’d been shoved into the room the ARCs had stuck them in and they’d been waiting for a long time. Or at least it felt like that, Fives couldn’t really tell if it’d actually been that long.

Someone was coming down the hallway. He felt like a brother, but there was something else… Fives was on his feet in a heartbeat, the rest of Domino after him without a thought.

“What is it?” Hevy’s eyes were locked on the door.

“I don’t know.” It was annoyingly confusing, and nothing in the Force made sense.

“Nothing bad?” Echo asked nervously, right at Fives’ side.

“I can’t tell.” Fives didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure, it wasn’t clear enough.

Whoever it was was getting closer by the second, and it was definitely a brother. But there was that extra power and this thought, maybe, possibly, how much of an insane coincidence would that even _be_? It was like the kind of stuff General Ti always said about destiny and that made it feel even more insane.

The door slid open and a brother in a gray non-armor uniform with commander’s bars on his chest came in. He looked over the five of them with eyes sharp enough to cut into them all like vibroblades. Fives could feel that something more still around him, but it was like that smoke from the exercise, there and gone with nothing to show for it but feeling like Tipoca was listing.

“You’re Domino.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir. I’m Hevy, that’s Fives, Echo, Cutup, and Droidbait.” Hevy stood in front of them and did the bare minimum to tell the commander who he was talking about.

“Right, I’m Commander Wolffe. You’ve been assigned to the 104th and there’s something we need to go through before you come aboard the Resolute.”

Fives stomach dropped as Commander Wolffe’s eyes shifted to him. General Ti’d said she needed to talk to him about something before he went to the 104th. Looked like that was a moot point.

“What’s this about, sir?” Hevy tried to cover as Echo pulled in front of Fives.

Wolffe’s huffed irritably. “Stop bantha-shaviting around it. I know already; Cody made sure of that.”

“What’s this about, then?” Hevy insisted.

“Why don’t you let Fives ask that?” Commander Wolffe stepped around Hevy.

Fives swallowed down the fear crawling up his throat and pushed past Echo.

“What’s this about, Commander?”

Commander Wolffe looked at him, eyes cutting Fives down to the bone. “There are personal things we need to talk about before you all come aboard. We’ve got a bit of a delay while the generals iron things out, and that’s just enough time.”

Fives tried to find the line, what’d been so clear before. But there was nothing. Nothing but his squad around him and that weird kind of hidden feeling, smoke like sensation around Commander Wolffe. Fives swallowed it all down again. His back was straight and tall, his shoulders were back, he was planted on the floor.

“What do you need to know?”

///

Being asked to the Jedi Temple was rare enough before the war. After it had started, that happening was practically unheard of. Padmé wasn’t happy to be the exception to that rule, especially not with the news about the 104th breaking in public. The Senate, not actually being in charge of the GAR, didn’t have any real response, and the Order was getting dragged through the mud. She wouldn’t have cared as much, except that it wasn’t just the few Jedi who hadn’t turned a blind eye that she was worried about. If the Order went down, the clones would go down with them at that point and that was unacceptable.

None of that changed the fact that she had to go to the meeting she’d been asked to, regardless of the potential fallout for her in the Senate.

Being in front of that many Jedi was still intimidating. Even, or maybe especially, after she’d done what she had. She could feel them all weighing her as she stood in front of them. Master Plo, Master Shaak, and a few others she didn’t recognize were attending by holo. But Master Windu, Master Yoda, and Master Adi were there in the flesh.

“Senator Amidala, thank you for coming,” Master Windu said, nodding to her.

“It was no trouble, Master Windu. I’m happy to be of service.” Padmé very carefully kept her mind clear of everything but the moment, the questions.

“This shouldn’t take too long. We were just following up on the incident with Ziro and Count Dooku.”

“Of course.” Padmé smiled pleasantly.

“Wanted to know we did, if anything else you may have heard from your source.” Master Yoda was curled in his chair looking tired already.

“No. I haven’t gotten any new information yet.” So they’d upgraded to dragging her out of her office, lovely.

Wasn’t the Coruscant Guard supposed to be handling the domestic part?

“Commander Fox reported that the recordings you gave him were enough evidence to investigate how such a serious breach of security could’ve happened on Coruscant. We wanted to know if you had anything else you could offer to that conversation,” Master Windu said.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know any more about that than you do. Like I told Master Gallia, I only had evidence that Ziro might be involved with the Separatists, nothing like what was actually going on.” It would be a good question to ask the next time she had the chance, though.

“Have you seen any indication of a connection to the Abiik-Kemirs? Given what happened on Geonosis, your involvement might mean that he’s looking to contact them again.”

Padmé temper flared before she could reign it in. Contact?! That’s what they called the shavit-show on Geonosis?

“All due respect, Master Jedi, but I think the Count is more likely to get a blaster bolt for his trouble if he tries to talk to them than he is to make friends.” The echoes of the glacial cold that always followed in the wake of Dooku’s name on Geonosis whispered in the back of Padmé’s mind.

Master Windu cut into her with his eyes and Padmé drew herself up, calling on her training and clouding her mind, laser focus on the present. Nothing else mattered. Just the Council, and the chambers, and the questions.

“Regardless, it’s clear that they operate in similar circles. They’ll know something about the Hutts even if they don’t know what Dooku was trying to do. So if you do hear from them again, it would be very helpful if you could try and find out what they know.” Master Windu pressed.

“Senator,” Master Plo interrupted, nodding to Master Windu.

“Yes, Master Koon.”

“Regardless of what information you can or cannot get out from them, the best option is for them to be informed. Their security is at risk; the safest way for them to operate would be for them to be fully informed about the investigation and the course it’s taking,” Master Plo said calmly.

A wave of shifting and shock went through the Council; even Master Yoda turned to look at Master Plo.

“I’ll consider that, Master Koon. Whether or not I’m in contact with them is irrelevant. Their security and freedom are the most important thing. They aren’t required to respond to any summons you or the Guard serve unless you can prove, legally, that they had something to do with what happened in Ziro's club. I’ll be happy to bring up the topic should they choose to contact me. But you all have to understand that that does not come with the stipulation that you can force them to talk if they don’t want to say anything or don't really know anything.” Padmé watched their faces.

Windu gave her a tight, overly polite smile. “That’s all we’re asking for. Thank you, Senator Amidala.”

“Of course, Master Jedi. I’m happy to help.” Padmé bowed and made her way out, ice cold.

As soon as she was out, she turned to Dormé. “Sweep the office; make sure everything’s secure, the apartment too. Check everything. No stone unturned, okay?”

“Yes, my lady.” Dormé hurried ahead with a flash of a hand signal to Moteé.

Padmé pulled out her comm and motioned for Moteé and the guards to muffle the conversation.

“Sabé?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“I need you to get in contact with the duchess.”

There was a breath of a pause. “Of course, my lady.”

“Keep it quiet, okay? Don’t let anyone know what you’re doing or where you're going. I’ll send you the details before you leave. I also might need you to make a stop somewhere in the Arkanis Sector.”

“Right away.” _You’d better know what you’re doing_ Sabé’s voice said.

“Thank you, Sabé. Everything’ll be in the package, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll be out as soon as it drops.”

///

“Commander Fox.” Padmé kept her eyes off the massive amount of datapads and paperwork in the man’s office.

“Senator Amidala, I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were coming. What can I do for you?” The Commander’s face was tight and his voice was carefully pleasant; his eyes flickered behind her to Moteé, Eirtaé, and the guards Captain Typho had assigned.

“I just wanted to follow up on Ziro and Dooku.” Padmé motioned for them to stand back and relaxed herself, moving back to stand more at ease.

Commander Fox’s eyes stayed on her, but the tightness in his face loosed a little.

“Of course. Let me pull up the files.” He retreated to the display and Padmé took the chair across from his desk.

“His comms had a lot of dead connections. Lines that don’t do anything or bounce somewhere else unless they’re activated. Dooku’s was one of those, so there’s no way to know which ones are his. Our slicers are working on picking apart the active ones from the dead ones, assigning names, that kind of thing. Everything to do with that is classified to the Guard, so I can’t tell you anything about that. But Ziro did say something that’s relevant to your security.” He moved what looked like a thousand different things around the display as he spoke.

“Really?”

“Here’s the transcript.” He flipped the display to her side and folded his hands on his desk, his elbow almost knocking a precariously perched mug of caf or tea off the desk.

Padmé speed read through until she hit on it.

“What does he mean ‘expected’?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. He’s talked about you almost every single time we’ve interrogated him; that’s pretty standard given the circumstances, unfortunately. But that kind of talk almost sounds like he’s still in contact with powerful enough people to be a problem. You’re ‘expected’ to do something or other that he didn’t clarify when we asked him what that meant. You wouldn’t happen to have any idea what he’s talking about would you?”

Padmé searched the commander’s face. There was very, very carefully hidden exhaustion layered under everything about him. He was watching her as closely as she was watching him, and there was something else, a hint of a ghost of some sort of uncertainty that Padmé couldn’t quite place. He didn’t seem malevolent at all. But that wasn’t certain. Especially given his position. But still.

“It might have something to do with Rodia. Ziro’s connection to Jabba, how close Rodia is to Tatooine. The Separatists have been sniffing around there. Pressure from the Hutts with Ziro in charge to get Rodia to flip, maybe. They’d have to make a different plan now, but the Hutts in general have been looking to expand their business, right? I have connections on Rodia.”

Commander Fox’s eyes widened and he nodded. “That helps. We’ll look, see if Rodia turns anything up. I can give your security a record of the threats if that’ll help anything. We’ve let them know about his interest, but I can give you some of the specifics while you’re here. It won’t be much use, I don’t think. But that’s really all I can give you with your involvement and the clearance-“

“That’s fine. I was just in the area and wanted to know if you turned up anything of note. Thank you so much for your time; I know you’re busy.”

“I wasn’t a problem, Senator. Anytime.” He smiled for the first time since Padmé’d barged in on him.

“Next time I’ll try to give you more of a warning.”

“Thank you, Senator.”

Padmé nodded and left, careful to keep her skirts from knocking anything over on her way out.

///

Bestine was an interesting choice. It was a big city on Tatooine’s scale, and it wasn’t like Mos Espa had been where everything and everyone was connected to the races and/or the Hutts somehow. It was even safe enough that Rex wasn’t uncomfortable going into it alone. He didn’t have too much time that day, but he’d barely seen anything when they’d gone to the meeting in the safe house or whatever it was. Neon was occupied with Ejasa for a while, Ben and Silas had gone off into the Wastes for something, and Rex needed to be away from the ship for a bit.

The suns were hot in the west, still strong enough that even with the robe, it felt like he was being cooked. Every sign was Basic/Huttese, maybe the occasional bit of Ryl here and there. Nobody paid him any attention either. It was different from Mos Espa in most ways, even with the Hutt’s business behind closed doors. It was less like the whole place was an oil slick and more like there were just pools of oil in places.

Rex stuck where there were more aliens. There tended to be less oil where they were. They weren’t really tourists. They were too comfortable with everything about Tatooine to be tourists. But they weren’t from there. The way they moved through the streets made that pretty clear, let alone the Force.

He twisted around the streets, following the shifting textures of the Force on autopilot as he watched the people around him. He kept his distance, hands away from his weapons and outside his robe. The stronghold felt so different from everything else now that he knew what it all was. Bestine itself felt surprisingly normal all things considered, but the stronghold felt like a hive of activity and drive that stretched past its walls and seeped into the texture of Bestine as a whole.

It was like having a spider bite.

Every time Rex went to focus on something like that, the offer kept pushing into everything. They were on the brink of what was clearly a strike against Jabba. They were capable of pulling together a big enough military force to challenge the Hutt empire and win. It was a lot of power, a lot of suddenly available pathways all through people who hated the Republic as much as the Seppies. And the thing was, it kicked Rex’s flash training almost as hard as learning about the Force had at first.

Rex wasn’t the clone to ask to make a grand sweeping, galactic scale plan, even leaving the quality of the potential allies out of the equation. Sure, he had ideas; everyone had ideas. But that kind of scale of thinking. That was Cody’s thing. That was Ponds’ thing. That was _Fox’s_ thing. That was way outside his experience. Something like Boonta Eve was way too drastic. But-

Rex sidestepped a massive near-human in some kind of synthleather-durasteel armor, hands going to his pockets as soon as he was past. The Force sent a spike up his spine and he ducked into a tiny side street next to something that looked like a dorm building of some kind. He kept his head down and widened his senses. The Force was still sharp with the warning, undertow pulling in the direction of the near-human. Nothing was missing from his pockets. Rex squeezed the grip of his DC for a second before he headed back to the street.

Right at the intersection, Rex leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and breathed. In, he reached out into the Force. Out, he pulled in and wrapped the cotton around him, marbling the cool Darkness through it. In, he thought about that sensation of invisibility, the desire to disappear. Out, he projected being nothing, not worth noticing. One more deep breath and he reached out, feeling around for that undertow. He opened his eyes and followed, slipping through the crowd like smoke.

It was like the being had left a trail of ink behind for Rex to follow. The heat of the suns was gone, and even though everything was painfully bright and sunbleached, his eyes were sharper and tiny details stuck out like a longneck in a training session. He could feel tiny shifts of wind against his robe, the packed sand still shifting under his feet. There was caf, tea, sweat, different foods, hot durasteel, and sickly sweet rot in in the air. Everything was slower, and within a few minutes, Rex could see him again.

Rex didn’t know what species he was. Tall, broad, with obvious weapons easily accessible and beings scattering around him as he walked. The armor covered all but a few flashes of what almost looked like pinkish-reddish skin.

There wasn’t any sign of him being Force Sensitive, but that didn’t really mean anything. He definitely wasn’t Mando, but he was heading for the stronghold. Right for it, actually. Rex knew, remembered the route he was taking. Rex reached into the bond and the Abiik-Kemirs snapped to attention right next to him in the blink of an eye. He closed his eyes and focused on the image of the being and hoped that got it across as he wove around the people to the closest building.

_That’s the enforcer,_ Ejasa said.

There was a push of something from Silas and Rex ducked into another side street. He lost the enforcer, but he could still feel him, so close to the driving life of the stronghold. Rex’s chronometer went off and he cursed. He sent gratitude, or at least he hoped that he did, over the bonds and rushed to where he’d hidden the speeder.

///

The comm came right in time to pull Cody away from staring at the finalized reports about the Malevolence. It’d blown up. Faulty handling of something important during transit or some such osik. He didn’t really care, didn’t have the capacity to care anymore. Everything that could’ve been said was either locked behind doors he would never even see, or had already disappeared into the void between Senate polished flimsiwork and reality. The comm chimed and he made a mad dash through the flimsi coating his desk to find it before it was too late. As soon as it was in his hand, he went to answer…and couldn’t press the button for a split second. He shook himself and shoved aside whatever complicated mess it was he didn’t have the time or energy to think about and answered.

Rex appeared on his desk in holocomm blue looking as well as he could’ve hoped for.

And osik, Rex had made everything so much more complicated than it needed to be and Cody _couldn’t_ he _shouldn’t_. He wasn’t. Maybe. He’d see.

“How is everything?” Cody forced himself to put it down.

“It went as well as it could’ve. We’re going to need to rethink some things, but otherwise, we’re going to be fine.” Rex’s eyes darted off the cam for a minute before he turned back to Cody. “We didn’t take the Hibir effect into account.”

And the stone was back in Cody’s stomach.

“How so?”

“The longnecks pushed way harder after we all finished our flash training than we thought. They let the rumors fill in where they couldn’t with that, and what happened on Geonosis isn’t going to help.” Rex’s eyes flickered off the cam again and he gave whoever it was an almost invisible nod.

“Right. Is it okay now, though?” Put out the fire, then worry about the damage.

“For now, yeah. But we’re going to have to figure that out. I can’t.” Rex cut off, took a deep breath. “It was a lot worse than it should’ve been in the second part. And there’s only so much you can do without making it a lot worse later.”

“Better briefing next time then. There’s a way to work in what they need to know. We can’t make it a rush job anyway, so we’ll figure it out. As long as the path is clear, that’s the important part.” Cody made a note to talk to Wolffe and Stacks about prep.

“Yeah,” Rex said flatly.

The stone was replaced by something knawing on Cody’s guts.

“What is it?”

For a second, it was like they were back on Tipoca, and then there was a flash of something foreign in Rex’s eyes that pushed the knawing thing in Cody’s gut deep into his stomach.

“The Outer Rim. Well, it wasn’t stable before, but.” Rex shook his head, eyes glazed over even in the holo.

Suddenly, Rex’s eyes were cutting into Cody. “There’s something big coming, ori’vod. What happened with the slug in the Core, that wasn’t the end of it. I don’t know what that’s going to be, but you need to watch out if you’re anywhere near the Arkanis Sector.”

The words came out in a rush like Rex was forcing them out before he thought better of it.

Cody swallowed the air punched out of him and nodded steadily. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

Whatever the kriff Arkanis was worth; then again, with Geonosis in that sector, who knew what that would look like.

Rex nodded, looking away again, eyes glazed over in a way that still translated so differently, even over the holo. Cody could feel the question coming up like bile, words that had to come out no matter how much he wanted to keep them down. It wasn’t his business. Not really. But it didn’t make _sense_ , none of it did.

“Have you heard what happened in Abregado-Rae?”

Rex snapped to attention in an instant. “No, what is it?”

“The 104th is gone. Less than a fifth of them are left, and Wolffe was right in the middle of it. All of the survivors are clear, but. They’re getting reinforced, all the newest shinies are going into the 104th.”

Cody didn’t honestly know if saying the words would be worse than Rex figuring it out for himself, what’d happened, what his silence had done.

Rex’s face shut down and he straightened so much it looked like he’d snap. “And you were called in to reinforce them.”

“Yeah. General Koon made it out. Wolffe brought him in.” Why was Cody avoiding the question that was eating his throat; when had that creature from his gut gotten there in the first place?

Rex traced his scar and Cody nodded, waiting to see if he’d picked it up.

“How’s Wolffe?” Cody picked up the barely there hint of worry in Rex’s voice.

“He felt it, Rex.”

The credit dropped and Rex’s face went slack. His head twitched like he went to shake it before he realized what he was doing. He looked at Cody, and for the first time in a very long time, Cody had no idea what the expression on his vod’ika’s face meant.

It felt like speaking through needles and a thousand broken things, but the words forced themselves out without Cody’s say.

“Why didn’t you _say_ something?” The raw _why_ broke Cody’s voice in the middle, the cracks spreading through the carefully made solid place Cody’d made for himself in the middle of the chaos.

Rex flinched back like he’d been punched. “I don’t know, I don’t know. It was so _small_. Just something he said on the way back, the tiniest idea. I didn’t.”

Rex’s voice broke and he looked down, shoulders curled like he was holding up the same Destroyer on his shoulders as Cody.

“What does that even _mean_? Do you have any idea? He was so. I don’t even know how to _describe_ how kriffed up he looked after everything, vod’ika! You can’t just. That’s something you _say_! I know you know that!”

“He was safe as he was!” Rex’s eyes widened and he went blank again, watching like he was expecting for Cody to find a way to hit him through the holo.

Cody was on fire. “What the _fek_ is that supposed to mean?!”

“He was right under General Koon’s nose, I wasn’t even really sure. Or maybe I was and I didn’t know, but he was right there, and we, I didn’t know if the general could be trusted. Ejasa picked me out in under twelve hours after being put through severe trauma. What do you think would happen with General Koon? What did? It wasn’t worth risking maybe confirming a theory without him having a real escape plan,. And the second I told him, he would’ve either had to put his life in the general’s hands or leave before he got scrapped.”

“And look how that turned out! He wound up having to do that after being traumatized just like the Abiik-Kemirs without knowing that was even something he had to worry about!”

Rex flinched again and it wasn’t enough; all Cody could see was Wolffe’s face when he was brought in.

“I thought he’d be okay. I thought it wasn’t like that. There are different levels, it’s on a spectrum. I thought he would be safe with the shields he had and in the position he was in. I didn’t think there was any more to it. At least I don’t remember thinking there was. I don’t know.”

Rex’s shoulder were curled so far they were taking his spine with them, and the fire banked just enough for Cody to see the same stress fractures lining Rex as he felt.

“You have to make this right. You have to fix this. Because we still need you for the plan as it is right now, and Wolffe isn’t going to take that until you fix it with him. I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

Rex nodded slowly, face stoic again. “Okay. I’ll figure it out. Next time I talk to him, next time I see him. I’ll figure it out.”

The holo winked off unexpectedly and Cody sat in the silence of his office listening to the engines hum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Shebs-Behind  
> Osik-Shit  
> Verd’ika-Little soldier  
> Haran-Hell  
> Ori’vod-Older Brother/Sibling  
> Vod’ika-Younger Brother/Sibling
> 
> I’m not sure I’ve got the geography of the cities right on Tatooine. I also don’t really know much more about Bestine than what’s on the Wookieepedia page. Mos Eisley was too far away, though, and Mos Espa was way too close. So I went with the city that seemed like it had a big enough population and was in the right spot for what they’re trying to do.


	27. Starlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 104th gets their new troopers settled and Tatooine keeps moving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience! I took a break for a few weeks. I should be back to regular updates now, hopefully.

Their bunks were similar to the ones on Kamino. That’s the first thing Fives really had the chance to think when they got assigned their quarters. They were officially 104th Battalion, Canidae Company, Platoon Cresh, Squad 2C. Domino had gotten thrown together with what was left of Cherek Squad after specializations. Oh, and Hevy had been promoted. That was new too. He was officially in charge of their squad. That’d been happening a lot all around right before “official” graduation. But the bunks were surprisingly similar between their drawers in the dorm and the Resolute.

They hadn’t spent much time with Cherek, and the last minute, long story short confession to Commander Wolffe about everything was still hanging around the Dominoes like fog. Fives didn’t even really know their names. Hevy was standing in front of them all looking the most awkward he ever had.

“CT-27-5555?” The uncomfortable silence broke and Fives swore he could hear the silent _oh, thank the stars_ from everyone.

“Yes, sir?” The vod was obviously one of the old Canidaes, too much individualization not to be, that and the captain’s bars.

“You’re needed in a meeting. Come with me.”

Fives glanced around the rest of his squad before he followed the captain out. The Chereks almost looked concerned and his batchmates were giving him the same looks they had when he went to his lessons with General Ti.

“I’m Captain Phase. The meeting is with General Koon and Commander Wolffe, so I suggest you make sure you’re all in order, trooper,” he said as he led Fives out of the shelves.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have a name yet, vod?”

“Fives, sir.”

Captain Phase laughed a little. “Very practical, nice.”

“Hevy’s idea, sir.”

“Who?”

Right. “Oh, uh, CT-782, the sergeant.”

“Oh.” Something that felt like tearing stitches went through the Force and Fives almost tripped over his own feet.

He looked at Phase as discreetly as he could and saw an unreadable expression that was broken by the sudden brightness in his eyes.

After a second, it was gone, and the command veneer was back on Captain Phase’s face.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll figure you all out. Right here.” Captain Phase stopped in front of a door and turned to look at Fives, undisguised concern in his eyes.

“Be very careful in here, Fives.”

“Yes, sir.” Fives could sense General Koon and Commander Wolffe inside. He stood up straight, shoulders back, and walked in.

All eyes were on him, and the door sliding shut felt like being locked in the brig.

“Fives, come have a seat,” Commander Wolffe said, eyes cutting into Fives again; at least they looked a little bit friendlier.

Fives waited until General Koon nodded before he took a seat across from them.

“We’ve a discussion that needs to be had.” General Koon had a teacup of something that smelled like wet dirt in front of him. An actual teacup. Did all Jedi just carry those things around?

“Sir?” Fives didn’t dare try to reach out, even if General Ti or Commander Wolffe probably already…

“I sensed a presence aboard the Resolute. You understand the security risks, so I conducted a thorough search and happened upon you and your squad. Your shields are advanced, well constructed, but hiding, true hiding, is an art not natural to Jedi, and not natural in general unless it’s been conditioned into an individual.”

There hadn’t been time to talk with General Ti after the news about the Malevolence was officially confirmed on Kamino. Even before then, they hadn’t had time at all in the shuffle. And Fives watched General Koon carefully. He didn’t feel any more dangerous than General Ti had. But then again, Fives was still learning, and picking out intentions was something that could take years to figure out beyond if the person wanted to kill you or not. At least, that was what General Ti said when he asked. So even if he could reach out to see, that wouldn’t help.

Fives looked at Commander Wolffe. He wasn’t making any real expression past general, mild, irritation, but he seemed secure. He didn’t look like he was worried about where it was all going. And he was a vod. He’d be worried if something was wrong, right? He’d find a way to tell Fives to keep his mouth shut, right?

“I’m sorry, sir?” Fives managed to get out calmly.

“You’re different, Fives. And based on what I can sense, I believe that you are not only aware of that difference, but have embraced it as it was meant to be.” However relaxed the words themselves were, Fives could feel the tension twist the small room in knots around the general and the commander.

Fives checked Commander Wolffe one more time. His shoulders were a tiny bit tighter and his face was a tiny bit harder. But he still didn’t look or seem worried about what was happening. He looked at Fives. The tension went out of his shoulders and he shuffled a little closer to General Koon.

Right.

“Are you going to have me scrapped?” Fives couldn’t say it, not to a Jedi; he’d never had to say it to one of them for himself.

The air in the room snapped like that synthetic crystal in the training room. Even Commander Wolffe seemed startled. It was so quick that it really was like that crystal breaking underfoot: over in less than the blink of an eye with his ears still ringing from the noise.

“No. I swear to you as both a Jedi and a general that I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening. You will be protected as much as I can protect any of you. And I am willing to help you learn to protect yourself from other Sensitives as much as is possible for a Jedi should you desire to learn. If not, then we will find another way to keep you hidden and as safe as possible from that fate.”

Fives had the weirdest feeling of déjà vu.

“Thank you, sir. I have to, you understand.” Was it safe to mention how involved the others were too?

“Of course. Relay through Commander Wolffe when you’ve had the chance to settle in and think about it. It’s not only you this would affect.”

Fives nodded and stood up. “Thank you, sir.”

General Koon shook his head. “It is not an inconvenience to ensure that you are all as protected as it is possible for any of us to be in this situation. Keep yourself and your brothers safe, Fives.”

“Of course, sir.”

Fives left the room and wandered back to their bunks in a daze.

///

Plo had never been to Kamino properly before. He’d read all the reports thoroughly and had kept up to date with Shaak’s investigations as well. But it was different, so very different, to experience it for himself. Within a day of having set foot on Tipoca, he could see why Wolffe and Rex had driven themselves so far into hiding that it’d been invisible even to themselves. The men were so devoid of the personality Plo had become accustomed to seeing, even in the short time the 104th had had to distinguish themselves from each other. He’d forgotten how blank of a slate the Kaminoans thought best to send out of Tipoca. Perhaps he’d never truly seen it to begin with.

There was something deeply unsettling about the whole city, and not just from the knowledge of the things that had gone on, that went on there. No. It was in the blankness, the purposeful emptiness of everything. It was industrial, sleek, and clean. There was no sense of personality anywhere Plo was allowed aside from in Shaak’s quarters and office.

Commander Wolffe seemed perfectly at home if Plo ignored the low undercurrent of vigilance and distrust that suffused the Force around him like thunderheads. Every Kaminoan they passed was subject to a visual sweep for a threat. Other clones were watched with a complicated mix of emotions crossing from cloud to cloud in barely audible thunderclaps. Yes, there was something deeply wrong with Tipoca down to its very foundations.

“Sir.” Commander Wolffe stopped in a dimly lit alcove where, between the two of them, they could see anyone coming from either direction.

“We’ve got the shinies on board and I know you went through the reports with General Ti. I know you haven’t had time to look, but did you see anything?” Wolffe spoke quickly, eyes fixed on the other end of the hallway over Plo’s shoulder.

“Nothing. She was much the same as she was when she left Coruscant. Perhaps more ragged and harried. But that has happened to everyone I know. I couldn’t sense anything definitive and any attempt I made to delve into your makeup was stonewalled rather transparently. I am watched every second I’m here, Commander.” Indeed, that little alcove was the first time since they’d arrived that Plo had not felt eyes on him from somewhere while inside Tipoca’s walls; it was quite impressive in an unfortunate number of ways.

Commander Wolffe shook his head. “I was afraid of that, sir. It’s probably proprietary, just like everything else. This isn’t something you can find out without twisting their arms, sir, trust me. They’re locked down tighter than the Corellian Shipyards.”

Plo could feel the truth, the belief, no, the knowledge.

“Whatever must be done.”

///

Shmi could feel the tension in the bond echoing the pre sandstorm like air in the Force around them. Her aliit was spread out through the Morut, and Neon was clinging to Rex as he shadowed her through the sandstone colored halls. It was a hive of activity. She herself was being given a wide berth as she made her way through the building. The space was not unexpected, but it had been a long time since she’d been looked at by so many eyes and it unsettled her enough that she had to think about keeping it out of the bond. Specifically away from Rex. His trust had been tested by the announcement of her being one of the leaders. It had been a surprise to her; it had been a surprise to them all.

Old visions of the slug dying by one of them aside, that hadn’t meant they were going to lead.

Regardless, it was done, and she had given her word. Anakin had disappeared to help Kit and Xiann dig through the mountain of data while Ben had gone to help whip the newest incomers into shape before they had to do anything. And Shmi was left to coordinate with Dia who wasn’t coming back to the stronghold until she had figured out how many volunteers she would have. All of that to say that she wasn’t not busy, but she wasn’t headed to anything too important or time sensitive.

The thing was, Rex hadn’t been nearly so tense immediately after the meeting or even in the days after. Something’d happened during his comm with his brother that had set him on fire and he wasn’t anywhere near back to the grounded, relatively even keel he’d kept since he’d been training. He’d been knocked off balance and there wasn’t a clear reason why. It was cause for concern.

She ducked into the data-storage room and waited for them both to duck in behind her before she went to the only display. It was an old 2-D style one hooked into an ancient, hand re-built bank that sputtered out answers as slow as an old speeder. But it also had all the records the stronghold ever kept, which consisted mostly of costs and losses. Clans, deaths, and moves were stored in the Remembrance Hall.

Rex kept his face blank when he saw the bank, but Neon gave the display a double take when he walked in. He wasn’t used to places like Tatooine. He also wasn’t used to the things that living on planets like Tatooine made necessary. It was interesting, seeing her home through the eyes of someone who came from the exact opposite kind of world. Neon had said he was on Geonosis, but it was different to fight somewhere, especially for so short a time. And Geonosis, desert aside, wasn’t anything like Tatooine in the ways that mattered.

The bank finally pulled up the record. Shmi caught Rex moving to read over her shoulder and moved aside slightly. He would know just as well as Ben.

“Those look improvised,” Rex said after a minute of Shmi silently clicking through mostly hand-drawn plans and schematics.

“Most of these types of weapons are. We can’t get heavy cannons out here and walkers won’t work outside of a city, so most heavy cannons or ion cannons are retrofitted from turrets or cannons on ships that can’t fly anymore or get built from scrap.”

“Right. Does the palace have shields or something?”

“Not technically, but Jabba has a fleet of speeders and ships for defense and military grade cannons mounted on most of the big ones. They’re more of a threat than the ground troops are. Those are relatively disorganized, mostly mercenaries and bounty hunters. He recruits from those circles pretty much exclusively. His personal guards are more organized, but they won’t come outside unless he does.”

“Is there any way to approach without them seeing you? Disable the speeders?” Rex moved in closer to the display.

“No, they’re protected by his personal guard. We wouldn’t be able to get close enough with anything capable of destroying or disabling them without them seeing us.”

“Can I see the prints of the cannons on his ships if you have them?” Neon asked suddenly.

Rex stepped away and Shmi put in the request to the bank and waited for it to chug out the answer.

Neon glanced at her a little warily and she nodded, moving further back from the display. He looked closer and nodded to himself.

“These are really similar to the ones on the AT-TEs. The guns themselves are pretty airtight as long as they’re maintained right, but the computer systems run almost everything about them. They’re all digital. If you knock out its coolant system, they’ll overheat in less than a minute on a planet like this, especially if the charge is hot already. Might even get it to explode if you can get the power storage chamber coolant system to malfunction too. All you’d have to do is get something like one of Silas’ disk things to go off on the central unit.” Neon looked at her nervously again and stepped way back from the display, almost stepping on Rex’s foot in the process.

Something in Shmi twisted a little, but she spoke lightly. “That’s a great idea! I’ll talk to Dia and Xiann and see if they can figure out a way to get someone in there to do that.”

Neon gave her a small, bright smile and Rex relaxed minutely in the bond.

///

It was late enough for the desert to be cold. Rex watched the sky where he thought Kamino was and kept the rest of his senses focused on the life around him. There was a group of Jawas to the South, sand bats hunting, blips of light like the sky he was looking at. One of the moons was blocking the view of the Rishi Maze.

Wolffe was going to need to be trained. Somehow, whatever level he wanted to engage on, he was going to have to train. The way it’d happened, he was in front of his general. The Jedi’s way of doing things, at least from what Rex could remember seeing, wasn’t going to work for someone like Wolffe. But taking out a commander in Wolffe’s position wasn’t just too visible for their system, it was dangerous. Any amount of experience could mean the difference between life and death for the brothers under his command. And even if he had the option, Wolffe would rather die than abandon his post.

Rex’s fingers twitched his fingers on the comm sitting on his wrist.

By his own orders, he couldn’t contact anybody but Cody unless it was an emergency or tactically important. That was neither. Even if he did, he had nothing to offer. He didn’t _know_ enough to give Wolffe anything helpful, not without seeing him in person.

Rex couldn’t just let it sit though. Leaving the personal issues out of it, practically speaking, it would be a disaster. Wolffe was going to need to move brothers out eventually, and they had to be able to deal with each other before that happened.

Hiding.

Rex knew how to hide. It wouldn’t do much for General Koon, but the general wouldn’t know how to hide himself. Not like the Abiik-Kemirs did. Not like Rex had been taught to.

He had to comm Wolffe. Orders be kriffed, Rex had a bad feeling about something deep in his gut.

In any case, he’d need to bring Wolffe and Cody in on the Alor’s offer. There was no way he was making that decision by himself. It wasn’t his call to make; it was so much bigger than just him. The system needed to be tweaked too, and the best way to do that was to talk to both of them.

So the only things that really had to be done were to figure out how to try and help Wolffe and fix things without going anywhere near him, present the offer the Alor’d made without letting any of the jetiise hear about it, and tweak the system to free their (more) endangered brothers without anybody in the GAR hearing about that either.

No problem.

///

There was someone watching them. Wolffe could feel it. The whole of Tipoca felt like it’d been shifted a centimeter to the left and he felt the same way he did on a battlefield every time he set foot off of the Resolute. He was glad they’d rushed getting the shinies on board. It’d been a pain in the shebs and made everything overly hectic, but he wasn’t sorry for it at all. Especially with that prickling feeling at the base of his neck that meant something was coming. Sooner than later. Kriff.

General Koon kept looking around too, which didn’t help Wolffe feel any less like he really was going to need his blaster. Trace kept checking in with them every five seconds. It was probably a bad sign that the constant reassurance that the Resolute was secure made Wolffe feel a little better about the impromptu meeting with General Ti. General Koon had done something that he hadn’t been very specific about beyond saying that it would keep General Ti’s attention directed to him instead of looking at Wolffe closely enough to spot him.

It was a bad situation, but what else was new?

Apparently, General Ti had said something General Koon had found “odd for her”. He was hoping Wolffe being there would push her to say something about what they were looking for or make her reveal something about what she was looking into beyond what she’d already said in her reports. Wolffe thought that was a riskier strategy than the general usually liked to use and that he wasn’t thinking objectively for all that the Jedi were supposed to be unattached and disconnected, even from each other. To his credit, he’d given Wolffe a way out. But apparently Wolffe was just as stupid as everybody else because he went right into the giant tar pit with his eyes wide open and a free pass to not walk into said giant tar pit.

Fekking haran.

“This is the last meeting before we get redeployed. Caution, I think, Commander.”

Wolffe nodded as they stopped at General Ti’s office door. He could feel something almost like that strange sensation that he’d felt when General Koon had shielded him after the Malevolence. Right. Wolffe checked his uniform again and went through the door behind General Koon.

“Plo, thank you for coming.” General Ti’s voice was weirdly warm for a Jedi and she was almost smiling.

“Of course. It sounded rather urgent when you commed.” General Koon sat down, looking completely relaxed.

“It’s good to meet you properly, Commander Wolffe.” General Ti nodded to him, Jedi-like, and Wolffe nodded back.

He sat after General Ti and the strange off-center feeling got worse, pressure pushing on his eardrums.

“What’s going on, Shaak?” General Koon asked after they were all settled.

Wolffe drew back to attention, forcibly ignoring the feeling that was making him itch for his blaster.

General Ti looked at Wolffe before she answered. “It’s a rather sensitive matter.”

“Commander Wolffe is trustworthy.” There was something under those words, something about how General Koon said them that made them feel heavier than they should’ve.

“I’ll keep my mouth shut, sir.” All for appearances. Wolffe really wasn’t supposed to be there anyway.

General Ti looked at him, something sad right in the corners of her eyes. “That’s not what I’m worried about, Commander. This is.”

She looked at General Koon.

“There’s something more going on here. Something to do with the methods they used to make Hibir. I’m not certain what it is yet. But if I’m right-“ General Ti cut off and look over Wolffe’s shoulder where there were bugs crawling over his nerves.

General Koon turned that way too, but Wolffe couldn’t feel anything through the fog the general had pulled around him. Just uncomfortable.

“How long has that been happening?” General Koon asked when the crawling feeling faded.

General Ti shook her head. “I’m not certain about that either. Some of the cadets have reported seeing things in the corridors, late at night. But I’ve not managed to see anything for myself. This was the first time it’s been that clear, even in the Force.”

What had Cody said about Sith again?

“Do you think…” General Koon didn’t finish the question. Good.

General Ti took a deep breath before she answered.

“No. This is recent. It isn’t part of what I’m looking into. It’s something else entirely; though, if you do see something, please let me know.” General Ti looked at Wolffe.

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course, Shaak.”

General Ti nodded, looking at them again, eyes cutting into Wolffe’s soul like. Like Rex’s. Like Abiik-Kemir’s had from behind that mask. Like Fives’ had tried to before.

Wolffe wondered if he’d feel that without those senses he was trying to ignore.

“Commander Wolffe, what do you know about Hibir?”

Didn’t she have access to the Alphas and the Nulls?

“Not much, General Ti. He was gone way before I was decanted.” Whatever stories the Alphas had told about whatever dim memories they might’ve had weren’t for generals. Or anyone. Vod or not, what Ben deserved was to be left the kriff alone. Him and his clan.

“Did the Kaminoans ever try to ingratiate the idea of working with him into you?”

General Koon stirred and something that felt a little like the calm before one hell of a storm went into the fog clouding those extra senses. Wolffe didn’t twitch a muscle through it, but that was a lot of emotional reaction in just the last few days. Wolffe knew for a fact that that wasn’t normal, whatever the general was dealing with.

It wasn’t like it wasn’t a reasonable question to ask if she was actually doing her job. Even if she was what they thought she might be, that question would’ve come up at some point. Wolffe just wished he’d had some time to get their story together with Cody before he’d had to come up with something on his own. Or that they’d thought about the possibility of that conversation at all during the ride to Corellia.

“Not really. We were aware that he’d existed and that he was the man in the holos we were taught with, but we were never told we’d have to work with him or anything like that.” It was just implied to the Alphas and passed down until they were pulled off direct training duty for “more important” things and the new training regime was put into place.

General Ti hummed and Wolffe thought he smelled smoke.

“What is it really, Shaak?” General Koon finally asked.

“Nothing provable yet. There is some Council business too.”

The waters felt a little less dangerous and Wolffe went to leave before General Koon shook his head.

“If this is about the matter I think it is, then it would be best if Wolffe were present.”

Wolffe didn’t like the sound of that.

General Ti didn’t seem to either based on the twist of her lips, but she let it slide.

“You know.”

Wolffe watched General Koon and kept his thoughts away from the shinies sitting on the Resolute.

“Yes.”

“Then you know what they would say had to be done.”

Another flicker of a storm brewing in the clouds around Wolffe.

“Yes.” Wolffe had a really bad feeling about how blank General Koon’s voice was.

“I think that should change.”

General Ti said it matter of factly, totally serene on the surface. But Wolffe could feel the sudden fall, the clouds trying to rush back to the being they were tied to. Could almost hear General Koon’s spine stiffening.

“Truly?” General Koon asked.

It came out carefully and Wolffe kept his eyes on General Ti’s face.

She hesitated, looking at Wolffe again. He was still sitting up in his chair, back straight, feet on the floor, head high. He did the thing they weren’t supposed to do and challenged her, looked right into her eyes and crushed the nerves and unnaturalness of it under his boots.

Apparently that told her whatever it was she needed to know.

“Yes.”

///

They hadn’t left Kamino yet. General Koon and Commander Wolffe had come back on board half an hour ago. Fives was still on their shelf, huddled between Echo and Bait and listening to Hevy go through all the new flimsiwork that he had to do. Cutup had disappeared to explore the ship while they were still allowed to wander and the Chereks (Dawn, Pale, Vertigo, and Gush, Fives’d learned) had gone to see their lost batchmates in the pit crew shelves.

“We made it,” Bait said quietly. “I mean, I always thought, I was pretty sure we would. But. We’re really here. We’re _104_ _th_ _._ ”

Echo twitched and Fives looked at Bait.

“Yeah, we made it.”

Hevy looked up at them, then down below where another squad’s drawers sealed flat into the shelf.

He looked at Fives again. “What’re you going to do?”

Fives knew. He didn’t want to say without Cutup around, but he knew. Was there really a choice?

“What choice does he have, Hevy?” Echo asked before looking around nervously.

Fives leaned on him a bit.

Hevy looked down at the datapad he’d been pecking away at. “General Koon said he had a choice.”

“He’s supposed to be one of the best, right?” Bait asked, looking between Hevy and Fives.

“Yeah, yeah he is. But Echo’s right, even if he said I had a choice.”

It was as much of a choice as being assigned to the 104th was. Maybe a good thing, but not really choice if Fives wanted to not get scrapped or worse.

“They’re getting ready to go! Rendezvous with the 212th then off to our assignment.” Cutup announced, rushing in with the others on his heels.

He looked at them all and Fives couldn’t help but be grateful for the sudden warmth and enthusiasm in the Force around them. He could feel Bait perking up next to him, Echo loosening up a little, Hevy putting something down. No matter what else. They were _leaving_. They’d _made_ it.

“Come on, if we run, we’ll get a spot at one of the viewports!” Gush said, bouncing on the balls of his feet behind Cutup.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Come on, 2C, let’s go! Hustle!” Hevy darted off his drawer and the rest of them followed suit in a rush.

The turbos were crowded and there were hundreds of brothers around them Fives dimply recognized as the hum that’d been around him his whole life, but he could still hear the other Dominoes loud and clear, Dawn, Pale, Vertigo, and Gush new, warm presences in between that felt like they could be familiar one day. Maybe even soon.

They all left the turbo in a rush and squashed against the viewports, brothers crushing in behind them. Fives heard one of the Originals say something like “don’t remember _ever_ being that shiny”, but there was such a buzz, so much excitement around that he didn’t really care too much. Besides, it sounded warm, so that wasn’t really an insult. Maybe.

The Resolute’s engines hummed and Fives felt the change in pitch under his feet echoed in the brothers around him, his face almost squished flat against the transparisteel with Cutup and Bait leaning on his shoulders to brace themselves and get a closer look. There was a tiny shudder, and they started to rise off the huge platform. It was so slow at first that it was like they were hovering by centimeters. But then they started to pick up speed and Fives felt the sensation of Tipoca, that thing that had been in the back of his head since he’d been decanted shrink alongside the physical thing in the viewport.

It disappeared in the stormy swirl of clouds and Fives almost felt high on the energy of the lighting he could feel around them and the fever pitch excitement and nerves from the brothers around him, from Echo, Hevy, Bait, and Cutup.

The clouds churned in the windows and Fives felt something _pop_ right before they broke out above them.

_Sunlight_

Sunlight on Kamino; who’d even seen it before? The clouds looked so solid, Fives could almost imagine them being a whole other layer, another part of the planet, another species that lived in the clouds like those cities in those holos Bait liked to read. They were gold, orange on the undersides in the shadows, and so soft looking. He could feel the heat of the sun through the transparisteel and he pushed even closer to it, the energy of it in the Force mind-blowing. It had always been so distant before, hidden behind everything else. But.

Fives looked around him and saw the awe on everyone else’s faces.

_Sunlight_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Vod-Brother  
> Aliit-Family  
> Shebs-Behind  
> Haran-Hell


	28. Blood in the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A threat gets confronted

Anakin was drifting. He couldn’t feel his body; the entire world was far away. Sand shifted like something alive in the wind and he could taste the remnants of the heat in the air as he glided over the desert. Everything was the orange-gold color of twilight on Tatooine, but he knew it wasn’t that time, or any time. He was following a line, this rose gold line as thin as a cobweb and stronger than durasteel for however delicate it looked. It was lit up in front of him, stretched into a city that he knew, just by the colors, was Bestine.

The Morut was shaded in blues and greens; maroon, and gold twining around black in shadows that looked like a thousand sharp things.

But the line wasn’t going there, so he kept drifting. There was something wrong, he felt in a distant way, something that was out of place, something that was going to get worse if it was left alone. But Anakin was made of something less than air and his emotions were a galaxy away. All but curiosity and the knowledge that he had to follow the durasteel threads wherever they went.

Rex was walking through the streets and Anakin knew that he knew he was being followed. He twisted and turned through thin streets and alleys, ducking and weaving like he’d been trained to do while being fired on. There wasn’t any fire, but that could change. It would change as soon as whatever it was caught up; Anakin felt that in his non-existent bones. Rex knew it too. He kept looping around in dizzying spirals that should’ve tied the thin threads in knots.

The clouds of core deep forest green, rich royal blue, and soft, gentle brown that made up his core left streaks of red the color of dying blood and something so bright it hurt to look at that was almost too saturated to be called any color (red, it was an enraged red that Anakin knew was always in his own core no matter how long he meditated). It was like blood in water, the way it floated around in the currents of the Force that the other beings swam through without seeing it. The being chasing him was blind to it too. The violence in the air was invisible, but it was as physical and insubstantial a presence as Anakin himself.

Finally, Rex was out of space and out of what beings there were to witness whatever was about to happen. He drew the Force around him, huge rivers of Dark colors tinged with the gold-tan-orange-white of Light on Tatooine. The sea became an ocean and the being stepped into a place where the Force was barely up to their ankles. Anakin couldn’t see Rex through the water, the colors, the rivers.

He felt the shot, silenced somehow, saw the scarlet bolt fly, saw the ocean step out of the way in a blur. The water moved and crashed into the empty spot and the being flew back under the weight of the wave. They cracked against the permacrete behind them and Rex moved, fluid like the water he was made of.

Draw.

Aim.

Blue fire in less than a second and a dead body on suns-hot sand.

Anakin gasped awake and scrambled out of his bed onto the floor. The cold durasteel felt like ice on his bare skin and he didn’t care. The world was a blur of colors and he knew that what he’d seen would be real, could feel it. That being. He opened his eyes and looked around, the world finally clearing up a little for him as his breathing slowed down into something that was almost, maybe normal.

Where was Rex?

///

Silas dropped into the chair across from Rex in an ungainly heap and Rex felt his eyes cutting into his shields from behind his mask. Rex drank his caf and waited. There was pressure in the bond, and he had enough to think about without trying to figure out what Silas was digging for. He’d startled awake about an hour and a half after he’d finally gotten to sleep and the world still felt too bright and plastisteel like, which clearly meant he hadn’t had enough caf yet. Silas dug into him and Rex left his shields where they were. It was amazing, the feelings he’d gotten used to. The nerves that weren’t his, the solid, at peace-ness that wasn’t his either, the unnaturally ordered patterns that weren’t his (at least right that second).

His own uncertainty was somehow sharper and duller with the lack of sleep.

“Were you stalked the other day?” Silas asked suddenly.

“You mean, did I see the enforcer again?” Had the comm really happened that recently?

“Yeah.”

“No.” Why?

“I.” Silas stopped and they were back to the waiting game.

Rex drained his caf and grabbed another mug-full from the pot.

“I had a vision.”

“What about?”

“You. The enforcer. I know what you said, but did he _notice_ you?” Silas stumbled over his words and Rex felt something deeply uncomfortable over the bond that he really didn’t want the name for.

“I don’t think so. There’s no reason for that, not as far as I know. I wasn’t really dressed like any of you or doing anything besides following. Why?” The bond wasn’t cutting it the way seeing a face would’ve and Rex was a little annoyed by that for the first time since it’d all started.

Silas shook his head and Rex could almost hear him trying to put the words together.

“You’re going to kill him,” Silas said with the kind of certainty he could’ve said that the sky on Tatooine was blue.

“What?” It wasn’t outside what Rex would do, but.

What.

Silas recoiled in the bond.

“That’s what I saw. You were being chased, you got cornered, he tried to shoot you, you _pushed_ him and then you shot him for good measure. That’s what I saw. It might not actually _happen_ that way, but that’s what I saw.” Silas didn’t sound like he believed that it wasn’t going to happen like that.

Rex took a deep breath, took a gulp of caf, stared at the mug, decided he hadn’t had enough, and took another drink.

“Why was he chasing me, do you know?”

Silas shook his head. “I didn’t see that part.”

Of course.

“Did you see anything about why that happened at all?” Like haran he was leaving them alone to deal with the enforcer if it came down to it.

Silas shook his head again, the bond locked down tight again.

“No, and as far as I can tell, nothing can stop it. But. I know you’re trained for this stuff, but Tatooine is different, it’s different with the Force, and it’s. Be careful. With yourself. Okay?”

Rex had a _bad_ feeling about the tone Silas was using.

“Okay.”

///

The Stronghold was on higher alert than it was before and the texture of everyone’s hyper-vigilance, including his own, rubbed Rex’s shields the wrong way. Silas had been forced off of him by Banai an hour ago and Neon had gone to run through the cannons with Ejasa again. And that just left Rex and Ben. Silas hadn’t said he thought the vision would happen that day, but Rex had a feeling deep in his gut that wouldn’t let go either way. He kept pacing the Remembrance Hall and pretending he couldn’t feel Ben watching him from the room he’d barricaded himself into.

Rex was given almost as much space as Ejasa was, and he could almost feel the curiosity/suspicion sliding around him. He wondered if any of them knew what their leader had offered to commit them to. It mattered, he could feel that; it mattered if they knew. He couldn’t tell if that feeling was a personal thing or a Force thing.

The guard was the same one from the first time they’d come to the Stronghold. He could feel her eyes on him under her helmet whenever he got close enough to look at the monitors. If she was concerned about him doing that she didn’t say anything. The enforcer had been by early that morning and hadn’t come back. Rex felt like he was missing something out of the corner of his eye, like the cam wasn’t in the right direction or something.

“Rex?”

He _didn’t_ jump, but he turned around, normally, to look at Neon who was looking at the Mando like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to talk in front of her.

“You okay, vod?”

Neon nodded easily, eyes still locked on the Mando. “I wanted to go look for food somewhere.”

“Sure.” Staying inside knowing what little Silas had told him was getting too deep under Rex’s skin.

They went out the back way, coming out of the back of a decaying building that smelled so different from the type of rot Rex was used to. Neon jittered until they were all the way out of the building and Rex slowed down a bit to walk behind him. He didn’t sense anything, didn’t see anything. But that didn’t mean nothing was there.

“Where’re we going?” He asked Neon after they were far enough away for his brother’s nerves to settle.

“I don’t know. Ejasa’s fine, but the others. They never stop watching.”

“We’re new.” The 212th had done the same thing to Silas on Christophsis when they thought he wasn’t paying attention.

Neon shrugged. “It’s different talking in front of their generals, you know?”

Rex didn’t, but that didn’t really matter. “You going to be okay?”

Neon gave him a weak smile. “I’ll get over it. It’s just a briefing. I know what I’m talking about.”

Rex felt the insecurity, brushed through it with something that felt like it could be rock.

“Let me know if you need anything.” Rex kept his hand away from his comm. It wasn’t the long-distance one, but Neon would see it if he started picking at it.

“I’ll be fine. You’ve got your own stuff to do, anyway.” Neon looked around before he leaned in, whispering so quietly Rex almost couldn’t hear him. “Force stuff, right?”

Rex smiled a little. “Something like that.”

The contrast between what they’d been taught about how jetiise and darjetiise operated and how it actually was got wider by the day. In some ways, the difference was a little funny. Like the idea that anyone had any actual idea what they were doing.

There was someone behind them.

“You ever get the chance to do a trailer?” Rex asked, trying to pick out if it was who he’d been looking for.

Neon’s eyes snapped to his for a quick second, but then the training visibly took over. The Trooper came out and the anxiety was hidden behind vigilance, even in the Force.

“One, yeah. Only the one, though. Wasn’t really my specialty.”

Rex nodded. “We got put through a lot of them in our track. I’ve heard it’s worse with just one.”

Neon nodded, turning a bit so he could cover Rex’s back and vice versa in a hurry.

“Where’d you have to go?”

Where was he?

“I can’t really remember. It was a while ago,” Rex said.

Neon’s face twisted and Rex kept feeling through it all. His eyes were useless with the crowd that’d gathered for the big market day. Apparently all the moisture farmers had come in for it. Ejasa’d said the water markets were a big deal in the bigger cities. Rex was getting the feeling she’d understated it.

He got a hit. “Most of them were in the South Tower though.”

“Oh.” Neon scooted a bit further back, hands still far away from his blaster. Rex could feel him twitching for it.

First priority was staying somewhere crowded. Jabba’s enforcer might not care about civilian casualties, but even Jabba had to know that one of his people opening fire in a crowded place full of one of the biggest relatively local supplies of potable water would be bad for business.

“What about that stall?” Rex pointed at the most crowded one.

It was a tiny food stand swarmed by humans and near humans who were probably moisture farmers if the canteens some of them were trying to offer for payment meant anything. There were a lot of blasters there too.

“Looks good.”

Neon followed him to the stand and Rex clenched his teeth at the hot, oily slide of someone through the Force behind them. The stand felt as safe as anywhere else on Tatooine. Rex couldn’t deny part of that being the sheer number of blasters and vibroblades he could see around them.

“You have money?” Neon asked.

Rex had a few wupiupi. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to get them something and make it look like they really had just been stopping for food. The owner was Sullustan and spoke heavily accented Basic. Rex didn’t know what he was eating, only that it wasn’t poisonous and that the Twi’lek at the stove/grill thing looked like he was about to pass out from the heat back there.

They stayed in the crush of beings around the stand and Rex heard a group of students pass nearby. His stomach clenched. He forced himself to swallow whatever it was he was eating.

“I didn’t know there was even a university _on_ Tatooine,” Neon said.

“It’s new. I think.” It sounded that way. Felt that way.

“Oh.” Neon didn’t ask the question, but after where they’d spent the last few days, asking if a place on Tatooine that took a lot of money to run was tied to the Hutts was just stupid.

“We good to head back, you think?” Neon asked after another minute.

Rex didn’t feel anything. He reached out again, looking for that burning oil feeling and finding nothing. He didn’t like that, but there wasn’t any real reason not to at least try to go back.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

///

Anakin was driving Ebb crazy. He and Ben were both driving her crazy, actually, but that spike of _danger_ and adrenalinethat’d gone through the bond was still echoing. There wasn’t a firefight or anything like that, but the pit in Anakin’s gut had opened into a gaping canyon and the Force was churning in blood red and navy blue almost sandstorms. Everyone was fine, and Anakin could feel Buir stretching out to make sure. But that was too close, and what he saw was coming. That boot was waiting to drop, Anakin felt it hanging over their heads, even if he couldn’t see anything that said it was there.

They both came in the back way. Neon looked a little rattled, but fine. Rex felt like he was waiting for the other boot to drop too. Anakin pushed off the wall and kept himself locked behind his shields except for a brush, just to check. Rex’s clouds had a tinge of that dying blood color in their shadows, twisting through the other colors. Rex nodded at him, still in the same kind of crisis mode as earlier.

Neon went off with Ben to talk to Buir and Anakin followed Rex to the Remembrance Hall. Ebb glared at them as they sat in the hall, right next to the door that led to the linen closet. The fabric made the hall smell a little less like dust and sand, even from behind the door.

“What did you see?” Rex asked again.

Anakin’s throat clenched around the words and the dream flashed by his eyes in a bright swirl of colors. He breathed through it, clenching his hands and digging his knuckles into the floor hard enough to feel it cutting into the fabric of his gloves.

“What I told you. I-“ A gust of wind blew him over and Anakin was being crushed under something he couldn’t see.

Someone pinched him hard and he came to swinging.

Rex sat in front of him, hands up, eyes hard and presence digging against Anakin’s shields harder than he’d ever dared to push before.

“You okay?”

Anakin forced himself to breath with the seconds, timing it against the clack of Ebb’s boots on the floor.

“I’m fine. This is important, I don’t know why. But it is, and I can’t-“ There was a flash of pinkish-red in the corner of his eye and Anakin reached. There was nothing there.

“This has to happen, and it has to be you, and I don’t know why.”

Rex looked at the rancor painted on the wall across from them.

“What was that?” Rex’s voice was calm, but the clouds around him were picking up, turning a dark green-yellow color.

“Visions like this aren’t. They’re not the best for staying where you’re supposed to be.” Anakin felt like his skin was too small. Like he needed to go run a thousand kilometers or just get out. Like he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Rex until it was all over.

Rex looked back at him, watched him for a while.

“I’m not going to die,” Rex said calmly.

“That’s not the point.” It wasn’t. Rex was a soldier, had probably killed more Geonosians than Anakin had that day. But killing with the Force so present. That would change, maybe even warp him and that felt like it should matter, like it should cost more than what would happen to Rex when the vision happened.

“This is what I was made to do, whether any of us like it or not.” The way Rex said it, like it just _was_ and that didn’t matter, made Anakin’s blood boil.

There wasn’t anything Anakin could think of to say that wouldn’t make things worse; so he kept his mouth shut for once and kept digging his knuckles into the floor.

///

They wound up staying in the Stronghold overnight. The room had been open, just a huge rectangle with pallets on the floor in groups that were anywhere from two to twenty. What felt like hundreds of different beings had been scattered around the room and it’d been so hot and stuffy, the Force overwhelmingly heavy on Rex’s shoulders. There’d a been a draw to go outside, get somewhere with cold air, but he’d bitten down and dealt with it. Predetermination didn’t actually mean something was unavoidable as far as he was concerned, and even if it was, that didn’t mean he had to make it easy for it to find him.

Neon had gotten pulled into another planning session with Ejasa as soon as breakfast (put out before Tatoo I had even started to rise) was over. Rex still wasn’t used to the rhythm of the Stronghold, of Tatooine in general. It was a real disconnect, everyone being so awake before the suns on a planet where you could actually see them.

Rex didn’t go outside to meditate like he had started doing whenever they were on a planet. It felt too much like that boot would drop on him if he did. So he found an empty room off of the Remembrance Hall with stars named after ancient Mando kings and warriors painted on the dome of the ceiling and sat against the wall, eyes closed and Force slipping through his fingers like water. He could feel the energy of the beings outside moving around, urgency of a swell of them flowing past the Stronghold. Maybe some of the farmers heading home. The city itself felt so normal that the tension in the Force felt out of place, even more than the day before. At least then there’d been something happening, something that changed Bestine’s texture.

He felt someone coming before he heard their footsteps and he moved to the calmest part of the room, almost wishing for corners he could duck into. Round rooms felt too open and vulnerable.

Whoever it was knelt in the middle of the room.

“Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc; ni partayli, gar darasuum…”

Rex tuned out the list of names, trying to focus on the change in the Force instead. The feeling of the room finally made sense; the ghosts that saturated everything in there, even the sand that scraped against his bare palms.

He got to his feet silently and walked out to the Hall as quietly as he could, feeling almost like he was walking through syrup.

They hadn’t a place like that; even the Nulls hadn’t had a place like that as far as he knew.

Rex looked at the Greater Krayt on the wall in front of him. It looked like the one on the Abiik-Kemirs’ pauldrons, tail primed to whip at whatever enemy it was crying at, but the names were different. There were only three, and they didn’t really seem like they were supposed to be written in Mando’a script. Shmi Skywalker was the creature’s head, Stathas hidden in one of its horns, script detailing some sort of battle in tiny writing on the other one and flowing down the neck when whoever painted it had run out of space on that part. Anakin Skywalker was the front two legs, a Stathas hidden in the second right, a pterosaur hidden in the left. Ben Skywalker was the tail, script saying something bout Ha’rangir of all things on the other side. The other six legs were invisible, like they were hidden under sand, but Rex could see how they’d be painted in if the clan got bigger. There weren’t any death dates or individual paintings nearby either.

If it weren’t for the clan name and Shmi and Anakin…

Rex moved to another painting as Ben came down the Hall.

///

It was quiet in the middle of the day. They’d gone out the back door to a part of the city Rex vaguely recognized from the other day. Ejasa led the way, Rex following behind and reaching out while Neon walked next to her. Silas and Ben had gone somewhere else on Stronghold business. Technically, they were on Stronghold business too. All of them were still tight in the bond, flashes of things going by too fast for Rex to catch. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to know about them at all.

The enforcer was, supposedly, still at the stronghold door where they’d left him. Well, at the cantina across from the stronghold door, but it was the same difference either way.

Ejasa picked through the goods at the market at the edge of whatever district it was supposed to be with almost military efficiency. Her tension was putting Rex even more on edge than he already felt. Even with how fast she was moving, they were going to be exposed for way longer than was comfortable with someone actively stalking Mandalorians in the city.

There were a few beings out too, but most people were inside, either asleep or doing business. Tatooine was brutal in the middle of the day; being a local didn’t change that. Apparently.

But that was the thing. There weren’t any crowds to disappear into, nobody who’d make actively shooting at them bad enough for business to avoid it. They were completely exposed. Even how bright the suns made everything wasn’t helpful, it just made everything harder to see.

Sweat dripped down Rex’s spine and he resisted the urge to shift. He stayed right where he was, staring at the intersection the stall Ejasa was picking over was on the side of. The part of the city they’d gone to wasn’t as built up as the other areas, mostly made of small, squat permacrete buildings and semi-permanent stalls like the one they were at. It was somehow crowded and open all at the same time Rex wasn’t optimistic about their ability to get out of there in a hurry if they had to.

Neon checked in every thirty seconds or so.

The air burned to breath it was so hot. Rex’s feet felt like they were burning through his boots too. Maybe they were, he’d never spent that much time outside in the middle of the day before.

Rex caught it at the edge of his senses: burning oil.

Ejasa put down whatever it was she’d been dealing with and practically threw the wupiupi at the vendor, not even bothering to haggle. They all stayed to the edge of the intersection, ducking into the tiny walkway between the stands and the permacrete buildings. As a unit, they went down the small street that would eventually lead back to the Stronghold. The burning oil was behind them, and Rex couldn’t tell if the enforcer was just moving around the market or following them. It didn’t really matter which one it was.

“We can’t go straight back.” He didn’t need to say it, but it slipped out anyway.

Ejasa nodded. “We’re going to circle around the other part of the city and make sure he’s not following before we go back.”

_Is everything okay?_ Ben asked, ice cold slipping through the bond and making Rex halfway think he could see his breath, sweat frozen on his spine.

_For now. Stay out of it._ Ejasa answered shortly, cutting down another street so sharply, Rex and Neon struggled to keep up.

There was a strong feeling of angry worry from Ben and Silas, but they kept quiet and (surprisingly) didn’t come running anyway.

He was definitely following them, and Rex could feel that Ejasa knew that too.

“We have to split up,” Rex said.

It was a terrible idea, but one of them had to get back to the Stronghold and warn them that the back way might be compromised.

Ejasa’s signature contracted a little in the bond.

“I know the way back.” They’d reached a part of the city Rex had explored before.

“It’s not that I’m worried about.” There was the same feeling Rex had gotten from Silas the day before and he felt cold all over again.

“We don’t really have a choice. Neon, go with Ejasa, I’ll go the other way and whoever he follows will try to lose him then head back.”

Rex left the vision out of it even as the boot fell at his head.

Ejasa didn’t hesitate, but he could feel the anger following him down the street he’d turned onto. Neon and Ejasa got further away and the burning oil feeling of the enforcer’s signature followed Rex down an avenue that got fancier and fancier the further he went. It got to the point where it didn’t even really look like Tatooine anymore. The rock wasn’t sandstone, it was real marble that felt almost as out of place in Bestine as the expensive looking ships he saw landing in the district’s spaceport.

He looped back around, taking a series of turns back to the places he’d spent most of his time in Bestine. Somehow, the enforcer stayed with him.

The university was the last big building in the “Galactic District” before it started turning back into what Rex’d learned to expect from a Tatooinian city. He went right, sliding through an alley small enough that he had to turn sideways to get through the middle. That wouldn’t stop the enforcer, but Rex hoped it would buy him enough time to make a turn out of the visual range of whatever macros the guy had in his helmet.

Rex could sense the enforcer following him anyway. He pulled on the Force, trying to blur himself enough to disappear in what little traffic there was. It wasn’t going to work; he knew it wasn’t going to work with every pull. The nerves were eating into him. And the anger. Anger that he couldn’t be sure was actually his. It felt like something instinctual: how dare someone come after his people and his home. That white hot rage was definitely Ejasa and Silas; Ben’s glacial cold version was somewhere else in the same vein.

He’d just gone through a tiny, deserted side street, almost too small to call it that, when something broke.

Rex dodged right before the stunner burned past him. The enforcer was already moving for him and Rex waited for the notch in the Force before he kicked. The enforcer yelled as Rex hit his ribs, right at the gap in the plating of his armor. He just got out under the enforcer swinging for him and got some distance with the added benefit of stepping on the enforcer’s foot hard enough to hear, feel, the bones crunch under his boot.

Rex yanked the blaster the enforcer’d dropped away with a sloppy _pull_. There were presences getting closer, blurry and vague in the immediate, sharp thing that was right there in the field Rex was sitting in.

“I know what you are, _clone_ ,” the enforcer spat, drawing another blaster.

Something inside Rex froze over.

“One of you was in the Palace. Fett’s one of the only bounty hunters Jabba would pay to get killed. Maybe you’ll do, wermo.”

Rex felt the bolt slip by, almost slow. What’d Fett done to Jabba?

That didn’t matter.

Neon was in trouble too if they were targeting anybody who looked like Fett, all of his vode were; it was stopping there.

Rex drew the Force around him in Dark waves only barely crested with Light. It was like the sunlight got dimmer around them and he could sense the seed of something that might grow into fear. It wasn’t going to get the chance.

Rex _pushed_ hard with almost everything he’d gathered.

The enforcer went flying. He hit the permacrete wall behind him hard enough to crack it and the burning oil that made up his signature went so cool that it was almost invisible in the ocean Rex was surrounded by.

Rex’s blaster was in his hand and he walked forward, the Force so thick around him that it felt like walking through water. He aimed.

The fire went out in a flash of blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Morut-Stronghold  
> Haran-Hell  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Darjetiise-Plural of Sith  
> Buir-Parent/Mom  
> Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc; ni partayli, gar darasuum-I’m still alive, but you’re dead, I remember you, so you are eternal; said daily before repeating departed loved one’s names  
> Ha’rangir-Ancient Mandalorian deity of destruction, seen as the bringer of growth and change  
> Vode-Siblings/Brothers
> 
> In this case, wermo is being used as an insult, as in, weakling.


	29. Reflect and Regroup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone takes stock and tries to figure out what they're doing

Rex knew he’d fekked up again. He’d known the timing of the enforcer’s death was going to be osikyc, but kark if it wasn’t worse than he’d realized. He could feel the piling tension in the Force while they dealt with the body. The ice that was coating his entire body wasn’t going away either. He was numb. He’d felt the death, felt that it was his hands, his mind that’d done it. But it didn’t matter. He’d killed before. And it was different. They hadn’t said anything, but he knew, _knew_ , that that slam against the permacrete had been hard enough to kill him, even under that armor. And the ice around him was probably a bad sign and he still didn’t know what color his eyes were.

Neon was sitting near him and watching like he was waiting for Rex to melt. Rex had killed before. Rex had probably killed more in the line of duty than Neon had ever even had the chance to. That was a good thing for Neon. It was also a little…Rex didn’t know why Neon was watching him like that. Ejasa hadn’t seemed concerned almost at all. But then again, she was still there like there hadn’t been subtle moves made to keep the others from finding her before she wanted to be found. She was doing something with her lightsaber that Rex couldn’t figure out and sending soothing waves of calm, even, distantly warm, peace into the Force around her. Maybe she was trying to counter those seaweed tendrils of Dark that were rooted in Rex’s core. Maybe that was it.

Maybe it didn’t matter.

He wondered if the ice would help with all the things he had to deal with. It was easier to see all the options when he didn’t feel much about them besides dim pinpricks of okay or not okay. He probably should’ve been concerned about the level of (was it?) apathy, especially for one death, but he didn’t really have the energy to worry about it too much.

Someone was close to him and Rex looked up to see Neon sitting a little closer. Ejasa didn’t say anything, mask hiding whatever would’ve been on her face. Rex thought about Greater Krayt dragons painted on the walls with the names of people he didn’t know.

He felt the enforcer’s oil fire dim under the weight of the Force. How easy it’d been. Killing with a blaster wasn’t hard, but it required some skill to be able to kill who (or what) you were supposed to kill and (ideally) not injure, maim, or kill anyone who that bolt wasn’t intended for. It was also possible to just not carry a blaster. Or to make a blaster as useful as a flimsiweight. That didn’t work with the Force. It was still there, had always been there, and now Rex _knew_. He knew how easy it was to hurl a being so hard it crushed them without even laying a finger on them. His hands looked the same, callused from hours and hours on a firing range and climbing things barehanded, scars from cuts that were treated a little too late, bones and tendons covered by the thinnest layer of skin. They weren’t the part that’d done it anyway. But it felt like they should look different.

“Here.” Ejasa’s voice was gentle and there was a steaming mug of some kind of tea in her hands.

Rex took the mug.

She sat next to him, Neon still on his right. Rex felt her look over at Neon as she brushed over his shields in the bond. She nodded to herself and Rex stared at the steam coming out of the mug. He randomly wondered what his colors in the Force looked like now.

“Are you afraid?” She asked quietly.

Rex took a sip of the tea and balked at the honey in it.

“Not exactly.” It was something other than fear, or something with fear.

Ejasa hummed and there was something warm around the ice Rex could almost literally see around him.

“How did you find the Dark?” Rex felt Neon perk up at her question.

The truth, was it really that simple?

“Easy.”

Ejasa nodded a mix of something knowing and weary in her signature.

Rex took another sip of the tea and wasn’t sure if he should be happy or scared that he was finally starting to thaw, the warmth in the Force breaking the ice down whether he was ready for it or not.

His hands were still steady, that was something. Neon leaned closer and Rex felt a bit of ice break away. The room felt like everything had been paused for a second; the Force was unnaturally still. Ejasa shifted, still projecting that peace and calm, the only waves on the lake.

“Do you think it was actually inevitable?” The guy was dead and Rex didn’t regret that, but being destined to kill someone?

He felt Neon move to get a look at Ejasa. She was quiet for a bit and Rex could feel her searching for the right way to say whatever it was.

“Literal visions leave a lot less room when they happen. Because it presented a clear and present danger, the Force warned us about it. Changing something as clear and forceful as that means that almost everyone in the vision has to do something different than what led to that. Things that close are the product of action rather than destiny. At least, that’s what it seems like.”

That sounded in line with everything else he’d learned so far.

“Are the literal ones always that distracting?” That seemed like more of an issue than a help if it happened every time, whatever the vision might be warning them about.

“Not unless they’re important somehow,” Ejasa said calmly.

That was the crux of it. It seemed like even the smallest choices had massive and impossible to calculate consequences. Enough that they made the ones that he could see seem small even if they weren’t. It sounded like that kind of vision didn’t happen a lot, the way Ejasa was talking. But Rex was seeing a trend of their visions and views of the future happening and coming true often enough that seemed like that wasn’t exactly true. At least, not anymore. And they had a dark one that they had to keep from happening; there was more ice with the memory of that Dark being from Silas’ other vision they hadn’t figured out yet.

The jetiise talked about the big picture. All he’d heard in the Temple had been about the big picture and the will of the Force. For them that seemed like whatever fell in line with their view. Rex had been listening, the talks about what to do with his brothers.

He put his head in his hands; what would this do when, someone, Councilor, GAR Nat-Born looking for a promotion, whoever else, caught wind?

Big picture.

Rex didn’t like the sudden personal attention from whatever part of the Force dealt with visions. They had enough to hide without being put into the kind of spotlight a coup or whatever else would bring. But there was also the ethical part of it, even if he wasn’t already in so deep that it was too late even if he wanted to leave. (And was it a bad thing that how easy it’d been to kill like that still wasn’t enough to make him want to stop learning, to make him want to leave?) Really, if he looked at it right, the GAR should’ve already been active there. The Republic was, officially, against slavery. So they should be taking action in what was technically Republic space. Or at least putting some pressure on Jabba about it. Right?

Visions of the darjetii who’d set everything up on Coruscant; Dooku hadn’t been a complete liar if those were right.

It seemed like a safe bet with the chips.

Maybe the Republic turning a blind eye to Hutt activities and interests that were technically supposed to be dealbreakers made more sense than it looked like it did on the surface.

Rex had used the Dark to kill someone, had been ‘destined’ to do that. He looked at his hands again, felt the warmth of his brother, alive and with not even a single bruise for his encounters with the enforcer. It had been an easy choice. And that wasn’t as much of a problem as it probably should’ve been. Rex didn’t regret anything except, maybe, using the Force like that. The results were hard to argue with. If someone knew what angle that argument was supposed to come from.

///

Anakin had fallen onto a pallet the second they were done with cleanup. Ben sat, guarding his brother despite the fact that there was even less of a reason to do that then there’d been before. For the first time in about a week, it felt like Anakin was stuck firmly in his body where he was supposed to be. That could always change, but maybe the Force would decide he’d had enough for the moment.

Jabba’s enforcer was dead.

The enforcer was dead, and however unsettled Rex was, he hadn’t Fallen. It was a good sign with how it’d happened. The stress in the bond was something to keep an eye on. But Shmi already knew what to do and Ben was not the being to send for that kind of comfort. At least, he didn’t think so.

It was, however bad it was supposed to be to feel so, satisfying to have the goon gone. He was an unpleasant person at the best of times from what they knew about him. And it seemed that he’d been personally invested in the destruction of the Morut as well from what the slicing crew had found so far. So him being dead wasn’t a hardship in terms of Rex’s honor and standing. Politically, as politics existed on Tatooine, it was a bit of a nightmare, but that was mostly under the condition of Jabba gunning for them.

If Jabba was consciously gunning for them as a group.

Ben didn’t think that was so; there would’ve been far more than just one enforcer watching them if it were. But his death was important enough to warrant personal attention from the Force and the potential reasons for that made the hair on Ben’s neck stand on end. Anakin could be overly sensitive to those kinds of currents, but a vision that knocked him off his feet that strongly was an important one. But was its importance of more of a personal or galactic nature? Either one didn’t exactly bode well.

Anakin stirred and Ben tried to think about something else for the spare few seconds before he sensed a new presence.

The Alor was in the room. Ben tried to keep himself relaxed. It was a miracle Anakin hadn’t woken up the second they’d crossed the threshold. The longer he slept the better.

They seemed to understand that and they silently picked their way to where the five of them had all sequestered themselves the night before. The Alor sat on the pallet next to Ben and looked at him instead of Anakin. Ben kept watching his brother and counting his breaths, watching the quality, making sure he wasn’t struggling to get air. Something twitched in the bond and Ben winced a little. The Alor was still sitting next to him silently like they had all the time in the galaxy. Like it was fine to wait until Anakin woke up if that was what Ben wanted.

Ben hadn’t had much cause to talk with the Alor. Shmi handled all clan affairs and Ben wasn’t Head of Clan material anyway. Their helmet looked like it was based off the Crusaders design, maybe even earlier, Ben wasn’t sure. Their sword was on their belt and there still wasn’t a sign of a blaster anywhere on them though they were definitely there. They were traditional, Shmi had told him and Anakin that much. But as for what they’d want to talk to Ben about. Well, there were a number of things if Ben thought about it.

“Is he well?” They asked quietly, just above a whisper.

Anakin stirred again anyway and Ben projected as much calm and relaxation into the bond as he could without risking waking his brother up.

“He’s fine, just a bit sleep deprived.” That and the fact that it was hard to sleep when the Force was constantly kicking your shebs, but that wasn’t the Alor’s business unless they asked.

“Good.”

Ben didn’t like that tone.

“Watto was their aras, right?”

Ben had enjoyed putting the fear of the Force into that slimy little hut’uun. He knew, somewhere, that some part of him thought he should feel ashamed of that. He would consider it when people like Watto, Jabba, and Scintel were dead or reformed.

“Yes.”

“Mmm.” The Alor shifted and Anakin stirred again.

“Why do you ask?”

They were quiet for a long minute, hands folded neatly on their lap.

“He was purchased from Gardulla the Hutt, and most transactions of that nature in this sector go through Jabba’s hands or Palace at some point. I have to consider all my options before the assignments are finalized.”

Ben bit his tongue and watched his brother breath, thankfully dead to the world for a time.

///

Ben picked at the parchment bread in front of him. It tasted sour, the bitterness of a mystery root and the sweetness of vegetables of some sort cutting through it. The root crunched and he stared at the bread. Shmi had poked him over the bond to go eat after a few hours and hadn’t stopped until he’d done what she said. She’d been right, but Ben wasn’t really in the mood to eat, even if he was near ravenous. Apparently she’d pushed Rex too, because he wandered in, tore and rehydrated a bit of bread, and scooped some fry onto it before he sat across from Ben to eat.

Something prodded in the holes in Ben’s memory and he swallowed down the discomfort with a bit of water.

The spices tingled in his nose and Ben tried to decide whether milk was worth getting up for. Rex coughed a little and looked at the fry like it’d bitten him. Ben thought he might’ve done that too, once. He took another bite, root and mystery vegetables rolled in the bread.

“Am I going to be allowed off-planet?” Rex asked, sounding resigned.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t you be?” Ben would have to talk to Shmi and maybe the Alor about a bit more transparency with things like that if he had to ask.

Rex looked at him, a skeptical eyebrow raised.

“I’ve done far worse and more inconvenient. Even if his people were watching the stronghold too, you don’t look like someone from here.” There was also the question of what issue Jabba had with Fett, but the answer to that may lie in jobs Ben’s aliit had taken as well.

There were also the dim memories of doing something on behalf of the Hutts before he’d wound up on Shmi’s doorstep, but Ben wasn’t about to give himself a migraine digging for them. That was more relevant to the jetiise’s search for the Sith and, _him_ , than it was to the current issue.

“Right.” Rex closed off slightly and there was a twist through the bond Ben couldn’t quite figure out.

“You’re not going to be detained unless you kill or target one of us or something like that. It wasn’t a bad kill, so you’ve nothing to be worried about. You haven’t done anything we haven’t done; you’re still in the clear.” Ben had his own concerns about what shape the new timetable would take, but those didn’t concern Rex unless he asked.

Rex raised his eyebrows again and stared at Ben like he was expecting to see past the mask. After a few seconds he seemed to drop it and went back to eating. The silence stayed, not uncomfortable, but present enough to be pronounced.

“Is there another clan with a crest like yours?” Rex asked offhandedly with a sharp and unfortunately familiar shift in the Force, scraping some oil up with a bit of bread.

Ben’d forgotten that they’d been recorded. He hadn’t thought that they’d be placed in a spot so easy to find. Perhaps it was the will of the Force. Technically there were other clans with Krayts as part of their crests, but not like Clan Skywalker’s. Still, technically.

“There are a few with dragons. Mostly Tatooine born or based, but some who either had a good hunt or earned the symbolism.” Ben, cognitive issues notwithstanding, would never forget what led to their crest being a _Greater Krayt_ for fek’s sake.

Rex’s eyebrows furrowed and there was some confusing noise from his end of the bond.

“And you wouldn’t happen to know which ones have greater krayts?”

As a matter of fact. “I only really know the crests of the clans that were here when we still lived here.”

Not that Ben would object to them living on Tatooine again given recent events, even with the Morut’s current plans shaping up the way they were.

Rex nodded again and rehydrated another piece of bread before drinking the excess water.

“I was just curious. There was another Ben, I was just wondering if you knew anything about that.”

“It is a relatively common taken name.”

“Sure.”

And that was a good point to think about trust wise once Rex was more than a day past his first major offensive use of the Dark and Force kill. That were still the same thing. Shmi needed to be done with meetings soon.

///

Kit, Jab, Xiann, Shmi, and the Alor were all gathered in the Alor’s office around the tea table. The Alor hadn’t spoken to Shmi yet, but she hadn’t missed them going to talk to Ben while she’d been sitting with Rex. They hadn’t asked about Rex either, but it seemed the selection of the assassin had become top priority within the new timetable they’d put together. Shmi had a bad feeling about what the conclusion would be.

“We know why we’re gathered here. Dia, have you taken a final count of your people?”

Jab nodded, putting her teacup down without a hint of a clink of pottery against the table.

“I’ll only be able to get about eight inside close enough to help your people with the current timetable. With Me and whoever your assassin is, the total inside will be ten. I’ll place them in strategic positions as much as possible. Externally, I can place a few more among the guards. They’re not overly cautious about who they allow into the Palace when they are pretty.” Jab finished pleasantly, a flash of sharp canines the only thing to say what she really thought about that.

The Alor nodded. “I didn’t think this would change your part of the operation too much. Jabba is relatively easy to predict as far as your people are concerned.”

Jab nodded, her bland expression broken by the vicious look in her eyes.

“Xiann, we’re going to have to put you in as soon as possible. Will that work for you two?”

Kit flicked through his datapad for a few seconds before he answered. “It’ll crunch my processing speed a little, but I can handle that. Having her close to the hard copies might help us cut through some of that huge package about whatever was going on with Ziro. There were credits, but we never found out where they were going either way.”

“I’m good to go whenever you’re ready, Alor,” Xiann said, nodding to them.

“Keep an eye out for another root system. We already know Jabba’s operations are more well connected in the Core than we were expecting. We have to make sure we don’t get tangled in anything else before we’re ready.” The Alor turned toward Shmi.

“The kill was good, and it has, temporarily, eased the amount surveillance. Nobody saw us near Rex or Neon, so we may be able to play it off as an unconnected kill-in-self-defense, especially considering that most beings see you as independent operators, even in your beskar. It’s likely Jabba was aware of what he was doing, but we don’t know how aware. We’ll have to take extra care to keep our heads down, blend in with the rest of Bestine while we can. Change the backway too, it’s more than time to do that anyway.

“In the meantime, I’d ask that you try and be careful about where you go and who you speak to when it comes to the two of them considering what Rex said the enforcer told him. Their accent is very identifiable, especially with all the coverage of their brothers recently. Huttese or Ryl may do if they know those; most people haven’t heard a Concord accent trying to get around them. If not, then it may be a good idea to try and keep them away from the central operations for their sake as well as our own.”

That was about what Shmi’d expected. It felt like the best thing for Rex would be to get him away from Bestine for a while too.

“I’ll see what we can do.”

The Alor nodded once. “That’s all I can ask. Now, on to the other crucial part of this meeting. I’d hoped I’d have some more time before we had to make this decision. As it stands, there are a few beings in this Stronghold who would be able to do what we need in the Palace. There are also a few from other Strongholds, but I think it’d be best to send a native. Jabba will notice any offworlder trying to get close. In the wake of the jetiise’s interference, anybody who doesn’t sound like they’re from around here would be under a lot more scrutiny than one of the beings who live here would.”

Shmi felt the heavy look the Alor gave her from under their helmet. She steeled her spine and kept her hands folded in her lap.

“We also need someone with an arsenal of stealth skills who’s capable of disappearing; someone proficient with a number of weapons, both ranged and close quarter; and someone who’s proven that they can fight and kill no matter what external stress they’re under. There are only three or four beings who fulfill these requirements to my standards, but I believe it’d be best to send the one with the most experience operating with a relatively small crew. Ejasa, do you think Silas would be capable of doing this?”

Shmi took a deep breath and leaned into the Force. She’d known. From the day they’d started aiming for Jabba, she’d known it would come to that question.

It wasn’t much of a question.

“Yes. He’s completely recovered. If you didn’t ask, he might’ve volunteered anyway.” He was going to, it wasn’t a maybe if someone knew anything about her An’ika.

“Then it’s settled. If Silas agrees to it, we’ll place him as soon as Xiann and Dia’s people are settled.”

Shmi felt Kit’s eyes on her from across the table and she took another deep breath.

It would be over soon, one way or another.

///

Anakin jerked awake. It was dark and his mouth felt like the Wastes. He stretched before rolling onto the floor and getting up. Someone had taken his mask off and left it on the floor next to his head. He reached out into the bond. Ben was meditating, Buir was working, and Rex was. Well, he was kind of meditating.

Water first, then see what was going on with Rex.

The light in the hallway was incredibly bright and Anakin realized he had a headache. He almost missed Neon sitting in front of the door. The poor vod had fallen asleep propped against the doorway. His signature was dim and his eyes were darting around. Dreaming then. Kriff, Anakin couldn’t just leave him there, and only an idiot would try waking someone in a deep sleep like that. He sighed and slid down the wall. Looked like Rex and water would have to wait.

Neon snapped awake, eyes locked onto Anakin in less than a second. Anakin sat very still and waited until Neon relaxed a little bit. He peeled himself off the wall and Anakin let himself shift into a more comfortable position while Neon figured himself out.

“Ejasa and Ben were in earlier,” Neon said after he finished stretching.

“How’s Rex?”

Neon turned to look at Anakin, a mix of colors around him like spilled dyes. “He’s fine.”

One tap in the bond said that wasn’t true, let alone Neon’s eyes. And Neon hadn’t been happy about any kind of Force stuff to begin with. It looked like Anakin wasn’t leaving anymore.

“What about you?”

Neon’s eyes widened, eyebrows raised. “What about me?”

“How’re you doing?” Buir would be so much better at this; Anakin felt like a Hutt trying to do Ataru.

Neon leaned against the wall and curled into a smaller target.

“I’m fine,” he said dismissively.

Anakin let it sit, let the silence stretch long enough and his skepticism leak past his shields enough to make an impression as he fought the urge to start fidgeting with something.

Neon looked away pointedly, shields close and closed. Anakin backed off and thought about water and the colors he was seeing around him in strange looking swirls. His eyes were made of sand and it really did feel like he was being stabbed whenever he looked at the light. Yeah, he was really dehydrated and had a headache on top of it.

“What’re you doing to him?” Neon’s voice was solid, but Anakin felt the recoil of fear from asking at all.

And Anakin felt defensive except that. It looked. The way it looked from the outside. Haran the way it felt from the inside sometimes. He breathed out the snap and blamed it on how much his head hurt and how nauseous the bright light in the hallway was making him feel.

“We’re trying to teach him, or at least Buir and Ben are. The Force changes you, that’s just what it does. You have to adapt to it or you’ll get crushed.” You might get crushed anyway. Kriff, Anakin hoped Rex dealt with it better than he remembered Ben dealing with it, himself dealing with it, even Buir dealing with it.

Neon shook his head. “No, that’s something else. What’s going on here, you’re not trying to make him like-“ Neon shut down and looked down the hallway eyes wide, arms locked in a vice grip around his knees.

_Oh_.

Osik, how hadn’t they thought about that?! Hells.

Anakin was _not_ the right person the deal with _that_ , kriff!

Karking fek.

“We’re not going to do anything like what was done to Ben. If anyone tried something like that, I’d kill them myself.” Even the idea made Anakin’s hands twitch for a lightsaber.

“Then what’re you trying to do? What’re you using him for?”

“Nothing. We don’t keep people trapped, ever! It’s nari cuir, breaking that!” The Force went into dark spirals of bloody orange and dirty, gray-green yellow around them.

“Your aliit, what’s it get you to train him; not this place and your group, you people. Yourselves.” Neon pushed.

“It gets us the knowledge and peace of mind that we’ve lived like the Resol’nare say to. Manda. That’s it.”

Neon shook his head and leaned back against the wall again.

After a second, he sighed. “That’s what the Alphas said Fett used to try to get them to learn. The Nulls, I’ve heard they’ll talk about the Resol’nare, that Skirata drilled it into them. Fett was supposed to be living by them too.”

And it came back around to Jango; Anakin was going to use a shocker on him the next time he saw him.

“Fett wasn’t following them like he was supposed to. What he did to you never would’ve happened if he wasn’t dar’manda already. We don’t want to change Rex or use him; we’re trying to do as right by him as we can. He’s Force Sensitive; unless he trains he’s vulnerable to a lot of things or to people looking to get someone like that as a prize. Even if he hadn’t done what he has for us, we’d still want to help him just the same. And if you really want a guarantee, we owe him a life debt.” That was still true, and not news to Neon, but he looked surprised all the same.

Anakin’s head throbbed. He put his head between his knees and squeezed his eyes shut waiting for the waves of pain to stop. His heart hammered and he bit down on the groan that was coming up his throat like bile. Or maybe he was just going to throw up, who knew?

A few seconds passed and Anakin swallowed a mouthful of spit before he looked up to see a horrified Neon.

“I’m fine. Would you mind moving this to the mess so I can get some water?”

///

Rex refound the training room. It felt so familiar, even with how empty it was, that he was stopped in his tracks. After a minute of staring at it he went in, took off his shoes, and started to go through the unarmed Makashi drill Ben had given him in a corner. He didn’t feel comfortable with the Force anymore, and that had to be fixed.

He drew on the Light only, just at first, feeling the strength and fluidity rush into his veins like a stim-shot. It was warm, and even though Rex could feel the Dark around, it was a relief to know that he hadn’t messed anything about that up.

Makashi flowed better than Shii-Cho did, but it was detail work to drill it like Ben had him doing.

Rex went back to what he knew, foundations then expansions. He kept his eyes closed and focused on the feeling of it. The Force was immediate, right under his skin and moving along with him like it had before. That hadn’t changed either. But the separation, or really the blend, between the Light and Dark had never been clearer. The tendrils of the Dark were wrapped through the Light. That balance. He’d overdrawn on the Dark; that was why he got frozen like that.

Both came in and Rex could see everything. The room he was in was right behind his eyes, the Stronghold like a blueprint in his mind; he knew how many people were in there, where they were, how to move without seeing a single person. He could sense the Abiik-Kemirs, bright under their shields, Dark and Light right there in all three. Neon was with one of them, stressed but fine, and he could appreciate the warmth, the certainty of that being true, even just for that moment. The Force wasn’t so wild. The unnatural stillness of it past the ice had gone away too and Rex drifted on the waves and currents of it as he moved through the drill.

His foot slipped and he went back to the top, working through it again. He breathed, let the tension, the fear, the guilt, the doubt all come to the surface, sensing the Dark come forward with it all. The vision he’d had when he’d gotten his crystal rose to the front.

“One of mine” he’d said.

“Aligned with me” she’d said.

Dark and Light, he’d had the Force’s attention the whole time, hadn’t he.

His foot slipped, and Rex started again.

“What are you afraid of, Mortal?”

What was he afraid of, what was he really afraid of? The Dark rose to answer the question and Rex saw the vision Silas had had of the darjetii for the hundredth time that day. He saw the realization in Fett’s eyes. Neon’s fear about what was happening to him, what he could do. Slick’s lack of care about how what he’d done had killed so many brothers. Ventress’ hatred soaked cold into his shields again and forced the air out of his lungs. The yellow-gold he’d seen in his own eyes when they’d gotten back to the Stronghold.

How easy it’d been:

_Push_

Crack

Dead

Rex’s foot slipped and he started again.

The broken pieces and planet sized glaciers Hibir had left behind in Ben. The white-hot, supernova rage Silas had let loose when he’d gone after Dooku. The bone grinding, razor sharp, merciless call for vengeance or justice (it was hard to tell them apart on Tatooine; that was something he’d already figured out) he’d felt from Ejasa when the Zygerrians or the Hutts came up in conversation. Things he’d felt from himself whenever he thought about the _scrap heap_ , _kriffing demagolkase!_

Darkness was seeping into his bones and he was ice again, but this time the ice was sharp. He could see everything, feel everything through it.

How easy it’d been: _push_ , crack, dead.

When he was fully trained the longnecks wouldn’t stand a chance, he could see that so clearly.

Rex pulled himself back from a ledge he hadn’t even realized he was standing on. Neon was alive, Cody was alive, Wolffe was alive despite everything that had happened to him, Fox was alive, Stacks was alive, Bins was alive. So many were still alive. It had to be about the brothers who were still alive. But Rex was so angry he was made of fire, felt the same white-hot supernova fury as Ejasa and Silas and somehow, it made those shards of ice melt and leave behind raw, painful gouges that made his chest feel hollow.

Whatever Rex had to do, he’d make sure to make it so that the galaxy couldn’t ignore what’d been done them anymore if it killed him. War aside, the Sith wouldn’t have gotten as far as they had, have hurt so many beings, without those involved being at best grossly negligent. He could see that with the Force in his eyes.

Rex’s foot slipped and he started again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Osikyc-Shitty  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Darjetii-Sith  
> Aliit-Family  
> Hut’uun-Coward  
> Morut-Stronghold  
> Shebs-Behind  
> Alor-Leader  
> Aras-Taken from the old Mandalorian deity of stagnation, used to talk about slavers  
> Buir-Parent/Mom  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Haran-Hell  
> Nari Cuir-Act Four (of the Resol’nare)  
> Resol’nare-Six Acts/Tenants  
> Manda-Heaven or the collective soul  
> Dar’manda-The state of no longer being Mandalorian  
> Demagolkase-Plural of Demagolka, a real life monster, a war criminal
> 
> The specific deity aras was pulled from was Arasuum, who was also referred to as the god of sloth.


	30. Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meetings in Mos Espa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one!

“You good, Wolffe?”

Tatooine was a terrible place.

“I’m good. We’re ready to leave the second the generals are on board, right?”

Wolffe heard Trace stare flatly at the back of his head. “Have been since we got here.”

“Good.”

They needed to leave as soon as possible. Even if it might do some good for Wolffe to go down and talk to his brother, that wasn’t going to end well if he did. It was bad enough to have to let the general go down without any backup whatsoever, but then he had to go and say that it’d be fine.

“How long do you think it’ll take?”

“Long enough to start going through the next couple of squads. Tell Tidal to set up shop. Might as well do something useful while we’re sitting on our shebs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wolffe glared down at the little tan death trap.

The general’d better come back.

Soon.

///

Plo felt as though he was walking through a soup of poisonous gas, thick and cloying. The Hutts’ presence in Mos Espa was clear as the daylight he found himself near blinded by once more. There were eyes on him, he could sense that, even through the miasma. What worried him was the lack of malice in them. There was a cold interest that could’ve been described as clinical if it weren’t for the sharp peaks of a sort of excitement that followed Plo like targeting computers. It also seemed that his attempted misleadings through the Force weren’t having much of an effect.

Master Vos had agreed to meet Plo in a day and half, planetside standard. That was looking to be a longer stretch than Plo had anticipated it being. The Force was actively pricking up his senses, leading him away the threat, and that was never a good sign. But Mos Espa held the answers he needed, so in Mos Espa he would stay.

There were rumors, a local legend of sorts, of a human man landing near the slave quarters only to be rescued by one of their occupants. The man repaid them by hunting down bounties until they had enough to free themselves. The occupants supposedly disappeared, never to be seen again and the one who’d owned them had gone missing under similar circumstances.

Plo had no intention of endangering the souls in the quarters by asking them directly; Jabba would no doubt take notice of a Jedi inquiring about something like that. But he was still covert enough, with the help of the Force, to go through there relatively unscathed and see if there was a place that felt as though it’d housed some powerful Force Sensitives in the past.

The quarter was both freer of the poisonous gas, and the owner of its own quiet (relative to the horror of some of the other things Plo had sensed) anger, rebellion, and resignation that turned in the Light like dust in sunbeams. Still, the Force seemed to be willing to guide him there. A near instinctive pull to a place he could almost see in his mind’s eye behind a piling of cottony clouds. There were more eyes on him than he would’ve thought. It seemed that life on Tatooine bore beings less susceptible to the standard repertoire most Jedi used to stay hidden. Perhaps the Abiik-Kemirs’ abilities were more born out of nonstandard necessary innovation more than out of any Dark connection.

Plo stopped in front of a small building. The Force was practically glowing with the residual, even after all that time. Ejasa and Silas’ signatures were imprinted in the very foundations of the place. It was uninhabited. Silence permeated the Force around it, as though it hadn’t been touched since they left. He took a breath and realized that he hadn’t done that in quite a while.

Inside was surprisingly cool, considering how it was open to the outside, the door left partway open by whoever’d last been there. There was nothing there, not sign that it’d been a home to anyone for years. Piles of sand were under the windows and near the doors, the weather guards torn apart by time and a million sunny days and sandstorms.

He could sense lives having been lived within, still. The living quarters offered little on the surface, save a further insight into the people Ejasa and Silas had once been. But Silas’ quarters, on further inspection, yielded a hundred tiny hiding places. Most were empty, but Plo found something that looked almost like attempts at lightsaber components, either stashed away and forgotten or deliberately left behind.

The central room was even less helpful. The vaporator was an old model, completely worn and broken down. Not a scrap of anything else had been left behind. But the cabinet and shelves set into the walls were still there, if empty. Searching in a cranny behind a cabinet the Force pulled him to, Plo found a coil in a tiny handmade lockbox.

Ben’s signature was all over the coil and Plo almost dropped it. There was something so deeply, fundamentally wrong with the signature that was in that coil. It was left over from a lightsaber, that much was clear. And there was blood, left over death throes of Jedi, and so many others. left in it, so faint as to be almost completely undetectable. But what disturbed him the most was the lack of _being_. There wasn’t any sort of person, no emotion besides clinical calculation and relief with a job well done. Obi-Wan, Ben, neither one was present beyond what was essentially a thumbprint of the clouds he carried that allowed him to reach into the Force. It felt like it was made of an ice that would never melt. Plo’s hand felt numb wherever he was touching it.

His comm going off was a welcome distraction.

“Yes, Commander Wolffe?” Plo went back into the central room and sat on the bare, sand covered floor.

“There’s been a sighting of a Jedi hunter in Mos Espa,” Wolffe reported, men’s voices buzzing in the background.

Ah. “Do you know who?”

A loud shout came over the comm. “No, but she’s distinctive. Source says they might have a positive ID within the hour. How do you want to proceed, sir?”

Plo relaxed into the Force, which was unfortunately murky. “We’ll proceed as we agreed on for now. Check in every hour, and if I don’t respond, contact Master Vos with my last known location.”

There was a pointed second of silence before Wolffe responded.

“Yes, sir, every hour on the hour.”

“Thank you, commander.”

“Of course, sir.”

///

“Did you let them know?” Silas hounded Rex.

“Put in the comm already, they’re on it.” The Dark was alive in Mos Espa; Rex felt it more than he had before, another part of the currents around him.

“Okay. You doing okay?”

Rex didn’t dignify that with a response.

“Fair enough, let’s get going.”

Rex followed Silas back onto the street and tried to ignore the feeling of the Star Destroyer’s eyes on his back from orbit. He could feel so many brothers nearby, and the draw to go to them was hard to ignore. Complications were nothing, that was home. His boots were rooted in the sand. He had a mission, more than one, and Mos Espa wasn’t the place to think about any of that anyway.

There was a bounty hunter to find.

_Why are we going after this woman?_ After the enforcer, Rex thought they’d’ve gone out of their way to keep a low profile.

_We’re just keeping an eye on her while we’re here. If she is who we think she is, then she might be a problem._ Silas almost sounded nervous.

Great.

It was a risk being there at all, but the strange jetii and the potential of a Force Sensitive targeting bounty hunter meant that they were there anyway.

_Who do you think she is?_

Silas hesitated and a nudge came over the bond asking for permission to show Rex something.

An image of a planet (Silas hinted somewhere in the Outer Rim), and abandoned industrial complex, living quarters included. There was carbon scoring on the ground and Rex saw three beings standing across from the Abiik-Kemirs with blasters on them. A pale near human with long brown hair and a massive sniper rifle, a huge Klatooinian who looked like he was about to try and rip them apart with his bare hands, and someone very nondescript looking with an equally (for the Outer Rim) nondescript looking set of armor. Out of the corners of his eyes, he made out Ben and Ejasa flanking Silas.

_Aurra Sing. We’ve only dealt with her once, right after a massive Jedi operation or something happened. We never found out what they were there for in the first place, but they left us alone after one of the jetiise came back. I guess they figured it wasn’t worth whatever bounty might’ve been on our heads to deal with us and the Jedi at the same time with no warning. She’s a hell of a shot._

_And what’re you supposed to do if you find her?_

_It depends._

_On what?_

_On if she’s shooting at us. As it is, she might’ve worked for slavers, but we don’t knew if she was aware or if it was a choice. If it wasn’t, then we won’t do anything. If it was, then we’ll do what we always do with bounty hunters like that._

Rex tasted blood and the merciless heat went cold around them. Deep breath in, a pull on the Light to slow down the race of his pulse and he followed Silas down.

“Where’re we going?”

“Intel. Almost all the credits that go through this town have been through Jabba’a pockets at some point. The places that keep track are the best way to confirm whose legs need to be kicked out when it’s all over.”

“Why isn’t Banai or Me with us?”

“They’re busy. Also, Kit can’t lie for osik.”

“Right.”

The area they were in felt like being surrounded by dormant tinnies. The back of Rex’s neck prickled and he swept, the same kind of crowd as that pop up cantina mixed in with slaves of all kinds. He clamped down on the twist in his gut and the curl of the Dark that twisted around his core like a living thing, eyes and mind locked onto the huge amount of weapons, with out in the open and concealed, he could see and sense.

“This is the place.” Silas stopped in front of a permacrete building with an ad in Huttese, Ryl, Bocce, and Basic about wupiupi, credits, and ‘valuable goods’ exchanges.

Rex must’ve either leaked something over the shields or made a look of some kind because Silas laughed a little.

“This is Mos Espa. The Boonta Eve Classic is a credit maker if you’re in the right industry. You can make a killing exchanging currency and goods like that.”

“And this is…”

“Just what we’re looking for.” 

_Kit says he’s on the payroll, if that part of the data’s still good_.

The armor they’d collected on the pirate ship felt heavy all of the sudden.

Rex went in first, feeling Silas start to melt into the shadows behind him.

It was much cooler inside, but it was so dark Rex couldn’t see a damned thing. Without the Force, he would’ve brained himself on something trying to walk for the first few seconds. Every opening to the outside, every way the suns could get in was locked down behind solid durasteel and rough, light colored cloth.

The ad hadn’t been kidding about the exchanges part. As soon as Rex’s eyes adjusted, he saw everything from gold to charge packs, the real expensive looking stuff locked behind some kind of bioscanner.

“Welcome, welcome, what can I do for you?” The owner was a reptilian of some kind with a scratchy voice and eyes sharper than a shriek hawk.

“Potential exchange. Durasteel armor set made for a near human about two meters tall and ninety kilograms. Full electronics with military grade HUD,” Rex said, swinging his backpack onto the slab of sandstone in front of the owner with a dull clang. He was almost insulted by how bad the layout of the electronics in the bucket were, but that wasn’t really important.

Hearing the vocoder erase his accent felt so surreal that between that, the dark, and still feeling the Star Destroyer above them, Rex felt vaguely unbalanced, like the floor was tilted. He leaned into the Light and felt through the room, marking the things that caught on him and passing that on.

“Let’s take a look at it then.” Suspicion and ambition wafted around the owner like vinegar.

They’d left the armor outside to strip the paint and, true to everything about Tatooine, a bit of sand came out with it when Rex put it on the table. The owner’s eyes flicked down to the sand before they swept over the mask Rex was wearing again.

Silas had disappeared completely projecting such a strong _nothing here_ in the Force that Rex was having a hard time keeping track of him as he made his way around the place, even with the help of the bond.

“It’s seen some action.” They said, turning the bucket over in clawed hands.

“It’s solid construction, though. Well made for that.” Sharp eyes were on Rex’s again. “Yours?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Rex said blandly.

“I suppose it’s not,” the owner said just as blandly.

_Found them._ Silas said, and Rex caught a hint of a blur near the bioscanner that felt blanker than a piece of empty flimsi and about as important.

“It’s a custom cobble job. Pretty common for most sets like it. It’s not worth all that much, maybe ten peggats.”

Privately, Rex thought it wasn’t even worth half that with how badly it was put together. He felt Silas slip through the bioscanner.

“Ten peggats? It’s worth at least fifteen!” It felt weirdly like bargaining for those dried kelp things on Kamino if Rex ignored the setting.

“Eleven.”

“If you’re going to waste my time-“

“This is a waste of _my_ time, eleven and two truguts.”

_I’m in_. Rex caught a warm burst of amusement from him that cut the tension in a brush of sunlight.

“Thirteen and one trugut.” He kept feeling around, brushing past things and logging the space.

“Eleven and one and a half truguts.”

“Thirteen.”

Annoyance bled over from Silas, mixing with the vinegar of the owner. Rex started recalculating the escape route.

“Eleven and two truguts.” The owner was glaring a hole through Rex’s mask.

“Twelve and two.”

“Eleven and three.’

“Twelve and one and a half.” This was getting ridiculous.

_Almost there._ Silas said, tension coming over with his voice.

“Eleven and three and a half.”

“Twelve and one.” Hearing Silas muttering to himself over the bond wasn’t helping Rex’s concentration at all.

“Eleven and three and a half, that’s my final offer, womp rat.”

“Twelve, that’s my final offer, sleemo.” Insulting someone like that still wasn’t exactly comfortable either.

_I’ve got it_! There was a rush of smug satisfaction.

The owner stared at Rex.

“Twelve,” the owner said grudgingly.

Rex was genuinely shocked they’d gotten that much, even out of something that was supposed to be a diversion. When he converted it into credits. It wouldn’t be livable for log in the Core unless you were careful, but in the Outer Rim, that could last long enough to make another payday relatively easily as long as nothing major came up.

“Twelve.” Where the haran was Silas going?

The owner muttered under their breath as they picked up a lockbox with more scanners than metal from under the sandstone slab.

Twelve peggats and a hard yank on the bond later and they were being blinded by the suns again.

“What were you doing over there?” Rex didn’t like how closed off Silas had gotten right before they left.

“Window shopping,” Silas said, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“You didn’t-“

“No, that’d be stupid, even for me.”

Rex nodded, keeping a careful watch for pickpockets while they headed back to Ejasa.

“Why didn’t Ben come?” He asked carefully.

“He hates this place.” From how bitter Silas’ voice was, Rex was surprised he’d agreed to come either.

A spike of alarm went through the bond from Ejasa followed by a warning and they took off running.

///

Shmi walked into a parts shop and waited. The Shadow came in after about five minutes and went right over to the miscellaneous wire bucket next to the door. He was disguised better than they usually were whenever they made it to the Outer Rim. She made her way closer over a series of tables and buckets, half an eye on him and half on the door while she kept track of Anakin and Rex.

She started rummaging through a pile of datachips near the Shadow. “Why are you following me?”

The Shadow didn’t startle visibly, but Shmi felt the flash-blossom of shock through the Force. She kept her movements slow and tried to make herself as non-threatening as possible. The chips moved around her hands like little, sharp pebbles, plastisteel shells chittering like insect wings.

“What were you doing with Master Koon?” He countered, getting close enough that Shmi caught a flash of yellow tattoos under his hood.

So it was General Koon back on planet, then. “We aren’t here for him.”

Shmi could taste the disbelief, sour and rotten in the Force.

“What’re you doing here, then?” He moved around her to the next bucket over that had a bunch of visual sensors piled up to the brim.

“Running errands.” She let herself sound dry.

The shadow didn’t say anything.

Something sharp went through the Force and Shmi was moving for the door, the shadow moving right out with her. She sent a warning through the bond as a blaster bolt went through the crowd and drew her own. The jetii hadn’t gone for his ‘saber yet, but Shmi saw his fingers on one of the inner pockets of his cloak.

“Viewing stand at ten.” Shmi was already heading for the other Jedi she could sense nearby.

The shadow stayed with her as the bolts kept coming. Whoever it was hadn’t seen her and her new acquaintance yet, but that wasn’t going to last long. She melted into the Force, disappearing into it and searching for.

Two other motes of calm in the middle of the panic.

“What’re you doing?” The shadow followed her, blurring his own presence into the Force in a way that was completely unfamiliar.

Shmi ran across the center to a transport and ducked behind it, the shadow sliding in right next to her with a _very_ nice blaster. She reached, the one she’d been going for was close, radiating easy malice. A deep breath and she took the risk to peek around the side. The Klatooinian, bolt resistant armor, still no helmet. She could work with that.

A lightsaber was humming loudly and she heard bolts getting bounced.

“Do you have a plan here?” The shadow asked.

“Either help deal with the sniper or deal with their ride. I’ll deal with the other one.” She ordered.

It looked like Sing was in town after all.

Shmi breathed, reaching into the Force and feeling strength flood into her veins. She opened her eyes, put her finger on the trigger guard, and moved.

The warning rang through the Force and she stepped aside with ease, feeling that malice focus in on her. She brought up her blaster and leaned in, feeling the Force for an opening. Another bolt and another dodge. She could feel how annoyed he was. Good.

A sharp shot of pain went through the Force from one of the jetiise.

The next bolt hit so close she could feel the heat of the plasma through her clothes. She cut to the right and aimed. Her hands fell into the space, and she fired.

The bolt connected and a light went out. Shmi breathed, staying in the Force and dodging another bolt before getting behind the transport again. Sing was still on the stand, but that other presence was getting closer. Anakin and Rex were closing too, but they were too far out to do anything about that.

Shmi gripped her blaster and went out in the open, letting go just enough to draw their fire and try to get the jetiise an opening.She ran, zigzagging, aiming for the speeder with a blown out console that was sitting abandoned on the ground.

A warning that came almost too late for her to do anything about it and she was laid out flat behind the now blasted speeder listening to a bike whine up to the platform.

The bike whined away and Shmi got to her feet just in time to see Rex and Anakin come flying down the street, blasters in hand. They both went right to her and the concern washed around her.

“Buir, gar jate?” Anakin asked, glaring over at the Jedi while Rex kept an eye out for the bike.

“Ni jate, ad’ika, na baat.”

“Sing?” Rex asked, turning to face the Jedi.

“It seems that way.”

Anakin shook his head, anger trickling through the bond.

“Thank you for you help, Ms. Abiik-Kemir,” Koon said, bowing slightly.

“It was no trouble. Funny running into the two of you here.” She was less worried about Sing than she was that the shadow had been following her.

“Indeed. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble-“

“We have somewhere to go, follow us.”

The shadow tensed immediately, but Koon did something quelling in the Force before he nodded to her.

“Thank you.”

That had been far too easy, regardless of how worried she might’ve been about it.

///

“We’re all fine, commander. Ms. Abiik-Kemir and Master Vos intervened, and we all made it out with a few scrapes. Everything’s fine.”

“With all due respect, sir, a group of bounty hunters tried to kill you. We need to at least verify that you’re okay, but we’re not leaving you down there on your own,” Wolffe said flatly.

Plo felt gratitude, pride, and the urge to sigh. “I’ve already been seen to. It would probably be best if we avoided anybody coming here; this is supposed to be a safe house of some kind, I believe.”

“I have to insist, sir. At least let me and Tidal come down. Trace can handle the ship until we get back.”

The Force kicked, lightning going through the clouds. “It’s not necessary, commander. Introducing any new elements right now might stir up more troubles than we already have.”

Plo looked at Master Vos, Rex, and the Abiik-Kemirs.

“Sir, either you agree to me and Tidal, or a whole gunship of men come down to hunt for whoever was shooting at you. You are not going up against that again without some of us with you.”

The mists churned, but Plo could feel the commander’s resolve from there.

“Alright. You and Tidal.”

Wolffe nodded. “Thank you, sir. We’ll be down within the hour.”

“And you have-“

“I have the coordinates, yes sir.”

The comm cut out and Plo was left with a question. Well, a number of questions. But he could sense Master Vos’ own burning curiosity and had an equally bad feeling about Vos cornering Silas or Rex to ask questions without anyone to mitigate it as he’d had about Wolffe coming to the surface.

“Commander Wolffe and a medic are coming?” Ejasa asked, handing Plo another bacta patch.

“It seems so, if that’s alright with you.”

“Fine by me, as long as there isn’t a whole squad coming with them.” She went back to the medkit and left Plo to his own devices.

Onwards then.

“Do you know why Sing was here?” Master Vos asked Ejasa, picking at his gloves.

“No idea. We weren’t even sure it was her. It was just a sighting.” Silas was standing at the door, blaster drawn and aimed at the floor.

“Why was he going after you, sir?” Rex asked, looking at Plo from across the box that served as a table.

His signature was Darker than it’d been the last time Plo had seen him. He hadn’t Fallen, but he was starting to have the same sort of marbled signature as the Abiik-Kemirs did. His shields had gotten stronger as well. He felt the same as the Abiik-Kemirs that way as well, such thin presences that he’d have felt Null if Plo hadn’t known any better, just like Ahsoka had said of the others.

“I don’t know. This was supposed to be a very quick stop, hardly even enough to amount to anything. I don’t know why someone would choose to attack me here.” That feeling was deep in Plo’s chest; he shouldn’t have agreed to Wolffe and Tidal coming down.

“It was public. They might’ve been trying to drive up their prices. Take out a Jedi on a job in a place where people see you do it, and it adds to your reputation. Especially if you already take jobs like that,” Ejasa said, handing Master Vos a canteen with a tilt of the head to say he was to drink it dry.

Plo saw Master Vos twitch at her matter of fact tone and felt much the same.

“Why are you here?” Silas cut in.

“Official business. A pick up before we went on to our assignment.” Plo answered, ignoring the look Master Vos was giving him.

“It might be better if you get off planet before they find you again.”

“Perhaps, but I’m not inclined to leave you all to have to deal with someone who came after my head just because you helped me.”

“We’ve handled worse; don’t worry about us, general.” Ejasa stowed the medkit.

The easy acceptance of that bothered Plo. “Regardless, it’s still my responsibility, Ms. Abiik-Kemir. I should at least stay to try and help.”

There was a pause and Plo felt three sets of eyes on him along Master Vos’ careful ignoring of the bantha in the room.

“All due respect, general,” Rex mirrored his brother, “it might be best if you were to leave her to us. You’re visible here; it’ll be easy for them to track you by just asking anybody local.”

“They’re right, Master Koon. Any kind of visible Jedi presence is something locals’ll notice,” Master Vos said, giving Ejasa a strange look.

“We have to get ahead of her. If it’s a Jedi she wants then we should let her think she can get one. Set up a trap or something out of town and get her to fight on even ground where we don’t have to worry about anyone interfering.” Silas shifted against the door.

“Use Master Koon as bait?” Master Vos turned to look at Silas, hand clenched.

“It’s not an unreasonable plan. If we can find some way to execute it properly, it will be much better than trying to leave before she tracks me down. If she found me here, it’s almost certain that she’ll be able to find me somewhere else, eventually.” And it seemed the Force was still trying to warn him about her as well.

“Master Koon, I’ve dealt with Sing before. Whoever took out the job on you, they went to one of the only people in the galaxy who could pull it off. She’s just as bad as-“ Master Vos stopped, eyes darting over to Rex.

“No, Fett’s worse,” Rex said evenly, staring right at Master Vos as calm as he’d been the whole time.

“It doesn’t matter. Both of you are right, and Sing won’t stop just because you leave. It would be best if we deal with this before she gets any more ideas about shooting up a busy street.” Ejasa ended it, cold silence falling between everyone.

///

Wolffe was twitchy. The second the shuttle had opened, he’d felt like he was waiting for a shot to go off. Tidal had picked up his kit and dragged Wolffe off the shuttle and into the oven without a word. The second it was gone, General Vos and Abiik-Kemir appeared to take them to wherever they’d stowed the general.

“How’re you doing, commander?” Abiik-Kemir asked as they walked.

“As well as you’d expect.”

Abiik-Kemir nodded, scanning the buildings around them. Wolffe’s gut tightened.

“You expecting trouble?”

“Here? Always.”

That didn’t sound like it was it, but the two of them turned into a bland permacrete building and that was the end of the discussion. Abiik-Kemir tapped some kind of pattern on the door and it slid open to reveal a single room living quarters that was already stuffed with the general, Ejasa Abiik-Kemir, and Rex.

“We’re back.” Silas went right over to Rex and sat down on the floor next to him, brushing Ejasa’s shoulder on the way past.

“Tidal, Ms. Abiik-Kemir, our host at the moment, Commander Wolffe you remember,” General Koon said; Wolffe heard the diplomat tone in his voice.

“Yes, sir. Good afternoon, ma’am.” Wolffe.

“Good afternoon, ma’am.”

Ejasa nodded to them both. “Nice to meet you Tidal. It’s good to see you again, commander, even under the circumstances.”

Wolffe nodded, listening to Tidal’s polite response and picking over the space. He looked at Rex and. It, well it wasn’t fine, but he wasn’t even necessarily angry. Even after everything, he was still a brother, Wolffe’s brother. He’d lost too many of those lately to waste time being angry at one of them for too long.

“Tidal.” Wolffe motioned to the general.

“Yes, sir. General?”

“Alright, Tidal, thank you.”

Wolffe went over to Rex and Silas scooted away very indiscreetly.

“We’ll talk about it later, vod. Okay?”

Rex nodded, eyes boring into Wolffe’s. “Okay.”

Something’d happened. Wolffe could feel it. “You okay?”

“Fine. Everything’s good.”

Kriff, what now? “Are you sure?”

Rex twitched. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

He even made eye contact. Too bad he twitched. “Okay.”

Tidal was fussing over the general in the background and Wolffe, despite his efforts, could feel the amusement from both Abiik-Kemirs as he forced the general through any number of tests and checks.

“Can I get you anything, commander?” Ejasa asked.

“No, ma’am, thank you.”

“Sure.” Wolffe got the feeling she might even be smiling at him.

“We can’t stay here with seven people.” Silas pointed out.

Wolffe felt Rex shift next to him. It wasn’t crowded by either of their or Tidal’s definitions, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable when Wolffe could almost see how on edge everyone was. He didn’t think it was a good idea to stay so close to the sight of the attack anyway, hiding in plain sight be damned.

After a short silence, General Vos sighed. “I’ve got a place. It’s not that much bigger, but there’s a bit of room for privacy anyway. If you think you’d be okay trusting a Jedi.”

It seemed like Wolffe wasn’t the only one who couldn’t tell if that was genuine or a dig at them. He caught a flicker of movement next to him, eyes darting between Rex, Ejasa, and Silas. All eyes were on Ejasa.

“That sounds safe enough. We’ll go there, finalize the plan, and get everything together for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Wolffe had been there for two seconds and he was already getting dragged into the crazy again; Tatooine was a terrible place.

“This needs to be done as soon as possible, for everyone’s sake. None of us want this hanging over our heads,” Ejasa said firmly.

Wolffe had a bad feeling about whatever plan they were talking about deep in his gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Osik-Shit  
> Haran-Hell  
> Buir-Parent/Mom  
> Buir, gar jate-Parent/Mom, are you good  
> Ni jate ad’ika, na baat-I’m good little one, don’t worry  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother


	31. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is enacted

The plan was simple. In Wolffe’s experience, most plans made the night before they were going to do whatever it was on maybe an hour’s worth of sleep and shavitty stale caf were simple. The amount of tension between the Abiik-Kemirs, plus Rex, and, mostly, General Vos lit everything up like liquid tibanna. That wasn’t exactly great for the plan making either. In the end, they agreed on something that everyone argued over the least while talking around Ben Abiik-Kemir like he was a giant whale or something that would eat them if they acknowledged his existence.

It was going to test Wolffe’s ability to not feel like his general was terrible at remembering that they needed him to be alive to be helpful, but that wasn’t really what was bothering him. They’d killed a member of Sing’s crew, or at least Ejasa had anyway. Even if they didn’t think she was too attached, bodies were expensive; bodies capable of hauling in a jetii were even more expensive.

Regardless, they were out in the desert at the crack of kriffing dawn and Wolffe was already sweating.

Silas had disappeared after they’d finished and reappeared with a cache that made Wolffe feel more than a little green. He saw Rex’s lightsaber disappear into somewhere under his cloak, but what really caught his attention were those electro-disks he’d heard rumors about off of Christophsis. He saw Tidal give them a stare from under his bucket too. Their blaster selection was a little limited, but honestly, Wolffe wasn’t surprised by that. Besides, the homemade stuff was more interesting anyway.

Even if one of those blasters was _definitely_ pieced together by hand.

“Take what you need,” Silas had said while grabbing a pair of gauntlets.

Wolffe turned one of the stun grenades he’d taken over in his hands as he sweat his shebs off in the sand. He’d have to test them out on Grievous sometime. If they ever managed to get close enough to do that.

General Koon was wandering around in Mos Espa until he caught wind of Sing and whoever else following her. They’d be coming soon. Wolffe still had a bad feeling about whatever was coming, deep in his gut. They weren’t looking at this from all the angles, he could tell that much. It seemed like everyone else felt that way too, if the fidgeting meant anything.

Who knew, maybe Silas was always that squirmy when he had no reason to sit still.

“This is a bad idea,” he muttered.

“It is,” Ejasa said, sounding completely unapologetic as she shouldered a rifle and went off to climb a giant mound of kriffing sand.

///

Shmi watched the horizon. They were closing fast, but they hadn’t started firing yet. It was inconsistent, and that worried her. But they were coming, still brazen and self-assured; that was good. General Koon was a blend of familiar emotions as he approached. She saw Sing’s speeder through her scope and dipped into the Force, feeling for the pocket. Her hand dropped in and she took the shot.

The speeder went down, a glowing, smoking hole in its engine, and she got up, shaking the sand off her hood.

The unfamiliar armor pinched her skin through the clingy underarmor as she slid down the dune, pulling her regular blaster from its holster. She slid smoothly to her feet, blaster aimed and ready, covering Wolffe’s left.

General Koon’s blue ’saber was sweeping, bright red bolts bouncing back. Shmi’d made five at the top of the dune. She could only feel four at the bottom.

She wasn’t going to get a clean shot from that angle anymore. A red bolt took out someone’s knee and they went down in a puff of sand, Force alight with their pain outside her shields.

She saw Anakin, Rex, and General Vos ringing in the rest. One jerk of her head and Wolffe and Tidal followed her to press the advantage. Blue sailed through the sapphire arc of General Koon’s ‘saber and another light went out, Wolffe’s curt satisfaction taking its place.

///

None of his bolts were landing, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. Anakin missed his kriffing lightsaber. General Koon’s was whirling in perfect Shien form, bolts bouncing back towards the beings who’d fired them.

Anakin pulled on the Force and watched the colors flow, strings of white light where the bolts were coming, clouds of Light colors swirling around General Koon, and the same gel-like wash of Dark and Light around Sing as before.

That presence. Oh great. He’d known they were a changeling before, but it was _wonderful_ to get the confirmation. Really.

Rex hemmed in on his side and covered while Anakin slid in and set off his gauntlets on the kriffing changeling with extreme prejudice.

“Parasitti’s down!” Anakin got closer to Sing.

The Force twisted.

“Get down!”

Anakin hit the deck at his Buir’s command, dragging Rex down with him, General Vos turning into another puff of sand in his peripheral vision. A massive explosion hit the dune next to them and hot glass exploded out. Pain laced the Force in bright flashes of sickly yellow around them. He genuinely couldn’t tell whose was whose.

Sing was closing in.

“General.”

“Ah, ah, ah, not so fast, _General_ Koon.” Sing had a blaster point blank on Commander Wolffe.

///

The twist in Wolffe’s gut had gotten so bad it was physically painful, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the bounty hunter. He heard someone curse an impressive run in Huttese that even Ridge would be impressed by. Wolffe felt the same.

“I’m afraid I have to borrow your commander here for a bit, general.”

What.

“Why?” Ejasa still had a blaster trained on Sing, but Wolffe knew it wouldn’t fly; he’d die either way, it was just a question of how long.

On _fekking_ Tatooine.

“Hunter-client privilege, I’m afraid.”

“Just shoot her, ma’am. Don’t worry about me.” Like haran Wolffe was just going to walk away with her.

But Ejasa was never going to do that, was she.

“What about Eliis and Parasitti?” At least she tried to get Wolffe loose; that was nice.

“I don’t need them to take the bounty. Really, we were hoping for someone with a little less buzz around their name, but you go where the credits are.”

Wolffe’s eyes were still locked on the barrel of the blaster.

“Okay, fine.” The blaster shifted to Tidal. “Come with me, or I blow this one’s brains out.”

Wolffe clenched his fists. And let go. Well, Tatooine was as close to haran as the living galaxy got, so it figured.

Wolffe got close enough for her to bind him and he felt the blaster dig into his temple.

“That’s good. Now you six are going to let me walk away, or your commander’s going to lose his head.” Her hand was so tight around his wrist that Wolffe felt the bones grind against each other.

“Nice and easy, that’s it.” She backed them into a speeder and started it one handed.

“Nice doing business with you.”

Wolffe felt her switch hands and they drove off, blaster still digging a hole in his temple.

///

There was another hole in Plo’s world. Something painful was ripped out at the roots as Wolffe and the hunter disappeared into the planes.

“We need to get back to the ship. Now,” someone said.

Plo shook himself out of it and forced himself back to the work, drawing on the Light and burying the ringing noise alongside that bone deep hurt under it to deal with of when he had the time to meditate.

“Thank you, Silas. Tidal?”

Tidal looked shell shocked, his guilt and sorrow bleeding into the Force like an open wound.

“Yes, sir?” Everything about him was solid except his signature and Plo _ached_.

“We need to go.”

Tidal nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“We’ve got two captives,” Silas said, still right next to Plo. “Think they’ll be pissed enough that she left them here to flip on her?”

“It’s worth trying. No binders, we take them to the speeder and deal with their injuries while we wait for them to wake up.” Ejasa stepped past them to guide Plo and Tidal forward while Silas and Master Vos dealt with their apparent captives.

///

They didn’t go very far. Wolffe had gotten worryingly used to the feeling of a blaster being held against his head anyway. The ship they pulled up to was small but well maintained; obsessively clean and neat. He didn’t like the look or feel of it, but the idea of just letting her kill him without even trying to fight his way out?

No.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. A second speeder hooked up with them once they were out of sight with another set of hunters.

“Okay. You’re going to get out, we’re going to be right behind you, and we’re all going to walk onto the ship nice and easy. You’re not going to do anything stupid, and you’re not going to make me do anything stupid either.”

“What d’you want me for?” Wolffe felt the blaster bite into his temple again before Sing backed off.

“All you need to know, clone, is that someone was willing to pay us to take you.”

Wolffe slid out of the speeder, feeling the blaster on the base of his skull the whole time. He had a bad feeling about why someone would pay a known jetii hunter to get him. And how-the how didn’t matter. He had to find a way to get them to drop their guard. It would only take a second.

“You don’t look like much; I’ll say that.” Sing had her blaster physically pressing against the base of his skull again.

“What were you expecting?”

“Something worth paying all of us.”

She shoved him and Wolffe went in the ship. It wasn’t as obsessively clean inside as it was outside, but Wolffe saw the obvious signs of someone modifying a ship to hide things. Well that was going to make things more interesting.

“You see the door on your right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going in there.” Sing reached around him for the panel, blaster digging painfully into his neck.

The room was modified, and it’d obviously held captives before. No sharp objects, no visible access panels or ducts anywhere he could reach on his own. The day just got better. The blaster prodded him again and Wolffe went in. His senses were immediately duller; the aches and sore spots got a lot more pronounced, too. Kriffing hells, that made things even more complicated, gills or no gills.

“Sit.”

Wolffe gritted his teeth and sat on the floor.

Sing sat in front of him, blaster trained on his chest. “I have a few questions for you. I have to make sure you’re who we were supposed to grab. You’re all so similar, it’s hard to tell.”

Wolffe tried to remember that it was a bad idea to scowl at someone who was holding a blaster on him.

Sing smirked. “Now, what’s your number? CC-3636, right?”

Wolffe stared at her.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. You’re one of the survivors of Abregao-Rae?”

So they’d finally broken the news on Coruscant. Great.

“Based on the glare, I’ll take that as a yes too. Good, that’s all I needed to know.” She got to her feet and backed out, blaster on his face the whole way.

Right, check for bugs and cams, then see if he could find a way out of there.

///

Having someone else to help with the first aid was good. They’d made quick work of what injuries they’d gathered, pieces of smoky, scorched glass sitting in a plastoid bowl next to where they’d had the three of them sitting.

Shmi could sense the same kind of shut down she’d been in a thousand times from Tidal as he helped patch Parasitti and Eliis together. Eliis was going to need more major surgery than either of them could or would do, maybe even a prosthetic. But the Force could make up for a lot, especially in the way of pain. Parasitti hadn’t done too badly. Anakin hadn’t stunned her as heavily as he’d done to Wessel. But it’d be a while, and she’d have the shakes. Either way, they would have to wait.

As long as Neon kept out of sight, it’d be okay. At the time, she’d thought that maybe they were being a bit overparanoid when they’d put those dampeners in that room, but there it was.

Shmi made a note to put some pressure on the follow up about the enforcer. One being targeting Jango, and by extension his aliit, was normal Outer Rim business. Another being hiring a team of bounty hunters that specialized in killing and abducting Force Sensitives to go after one of Rex’s Force Sensitive brothers? Jabba could afford that if he wanted to.

She made another note to get Rex off planet as soon as Wolffe was back.

///

No cams, no bugs. That was a good start. Wolffe felt around the room, pressing at the wall panels as hard as he could. The durasteel slab in the corner was useless; the bucket might’ve been useful if it wasn’t made of something that’d shatter before it could do anything worth a bantha shavit. The door was definitely alarmed. He wasn’t going to be able to reach the ceiling without something to stand on, and the bucket a) wasn’t tall enough, and b) couldn’t take his weight anyway. He pushed harder. The durasteel stayed right where it was.

There were lines for the access panels that every ship had kriffing everywhere, but all of them were either locked or welded shut.

The real question was, why would someone pay a team of bounty hunters that had to cost a fortune to pick up one measly clone? Granted, Wolffe was a commander, but he didn’t know any classified information worth shelling out credits like that for. There were only a few reasons he could think of, and none of them boded well for their internal security or him making it off the ship alive.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. If they were after something he knew, then yeah; it wasn’t likely Sing and whoever paid for her would just let him go. But if someone had figured out what they were doing with the chips, then why hadn’t she taken Tidal? Wolffe was glad she hadn’t, but he wasn’t exactly a slicer or a medic. He hoped that meant she was as smart as she thought she was when it came to her work. If it was Jedi they were after, there’d been two right there. The same trick would’ve worked to at least get General Koon to come with her.

If it was about the Force. How. How could someone already know about that, already be willing to shell out the credits to get him? Why on kriffing Tatooine of all places? Why wouldn’t they just have him scrapped? He wasn’t any use with that. It wasn’t like they needed a real reason if they were anywhere in the chain of command either. General Koon wouldn’t be able to fight an executive order from high enough, even if he wanted to.

It filled in the gaps but it didn’t make any sense. Especially when there was someone like Rex nearby, living on planet for fek’s sake.

Osik.

So if that was what they were after, why hadn’t she done a midichlorian test to confirm?

Wolffe sat down right before the door slid open. Speak of the rancor. Sing had a mini medkit in her hands, the same smirk on her face.

“I’m going to need a blood sample.”

///

Quinlan listened to his heartbeat, felt the air around him, the Force wound through everything Light and Dark twined together. He breathed in the Light, felt his whole body warm as it went into his blood. The Dark faded away with the emotions it was flooded in and he felt feather light, drifting on the wind that was the Force on Tatooine.

He opened his eyes, took off his glove, and touched Eliis.

“Kriff off.”

“It’s a good job. More credits than any of us make in a year. Easy too. We’re after a clone.”

“A clone that’s been on the holonet for the past week. No karking thanks. Kriff off and let me drink.”

Eliis was glaring at Sing across a table in a cantina that Quinlan thought might be somewhere on Nar Shaddaa. Sing looked like every other Jedi killing bounty hunter Quinlan had ever seen a holo of. Eliis’ hood covered most of her face, snow white skin peeking out from under the hood.

“Yeah, but still a clone. Once the Jedi’s out of the way, it’ll be easy.”

“You say like getting a Jedi ‘out of the way’ is ever simple when they feel like they owe someone their protection or something. Tatooine is dragon territory anyway. You couldn’t pay me enough.”

“I have a plan. And if it’s the dragons you’re worried about, they hate Jedi almost as much as I do. They wouldn’t step in to help one of them if it meant pissing on them to put out a fire. They’re Mandalorian.”

“Yeah, but they also hate slavers. And from what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t be surprised if they stepped in to protect the clone and killed us all, Jedi included. So kriff off.”

Sing sneered before she took a gulp of whatever was in her glass.

“You’ll get the payout of a lifetime, get killed, which could happen on any other job anyway, or get set loose. You know for a fact that they won’t sell you to a slaver.”

“That’s not what I’m telling you to kriff off for.”

“Give me your terms.”

///

There was a blocker of some kind. They hadn’t taken Wolffe’s comm, but nothing was going through. He didn’t want to try and mess with it without the tools. Besides, that probably wouldn’t work anyway. But he still had it. Whatever happened, they could scan for it if it found the light of day again. Maybe they’d actually know where his body was if he died.

Not that they’d do anything about it, but it was nice to know his brothers would know where to find him. Maybe Rex would give him proper rights once it was clear if he did wind up in a pile of sand somewhere on the ka’ra forsaken dustball.

The bacta patch she’d given him was old, but it’d done the job. He was surprised she’d even bothered giving him one. Whoever it was that’d contracted them, Wolffe was getting a _very_ bad feeling about why he was being taken care of. Especially after that blood sample she’d taken.

It was completely stupid, but he couldn’t shake the feeling someone was coming for him. That didn’t make any sense at all, even with General Koon right there, the Abiik-Kemirs treating Rex, and by his account the 212th vod as well, like someone important. He was just one clone. However _important_ his position might’ve been, Trace could be promoted and someone else, maybe Phase, could move up too. It wasn’t like he was impossible to replace, even with his experience.

But then, there was Abregado.

Maybe it wasn’t so stupid to think that maybe someone would come. What was stupid was making that the only thing he could rely on. So Wolffe kept looking.

Thing was, Sing, Parasitti, or whoever’s ship it was wasn’t an utreekov. No panel inside to open the door. But, there was still a panel cover there, meaning that the wiring still had to be there, and if Wolffe could get it open, he might be able to put those mandatory “these are the dangerous wires” lessons from Kamino to good use.

All he had to do was find something to get that panel open. Maybe the bucket being so shavitty was useful after all.

///

Rex’s heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the adrenaline circulating around with the Force. His breath was steady, but that was conditioning more than it was conscious. It didn’t matter.

He sank down in the depths, letting the Dark in with the Light that was already there, feeling his lungs seize at the sudden cold, the Force pressing in on all sides, against his ears like deep water.

Rex wasn’t real. He was on the wind, the heat of the desert not even registering. He was as real and intangible as the moonlight. He was so far from the little cabin of the ship, so far from all the living things inside that the life in the desert felt more alive than his own body did: distant, more of a memory than a thing that was still alive and still needed water and air and warmth to survive.

The Dark tried to eat into his fear. He felt the pull, the slip, that thing he’d been standing too close to.

Wolffe.

Where was Wolffe.

There was a place, the Force was bending around it. It was small, felt like something he could’ve ignored his entire life. But the Force insisted. That was where he needed to look.

He saw bones, a thousand and one creatures dead in the merciless sun and sand of the desert. He saw a metal shell that had a dead place inside, the Force around it but not allowed in it. He felt the Force trying to connect and kept away by whatever it was.

Rex came to with a heaving gasp that turned into a hacking cough and hands on his back bracing him upright.

“I know where they are!”

///

Whatever the bucket was made of, it wasn’t going to stand up to durasteel. Wolffe could feel that the second he’d tried it. But it had shattered into shards that were as sharp as vibroblades. He’d torn off a bit of his undershirt to wrap around the end of it and felt much better with a weapon in his hand. There was still no Force in the room, but he could get the drop on Sing anyway. He’d found the mechanisms for those things pirates used to tie their prisoners together. Probably as close to a safety belt as he was going to get, and she’d tie him down before she took off. That was his chance.

The results of the blood test would be damning, but there was a chance, however small, that the damage could be limited to beings who already knew. Either way, there was an escape route. It felt more than a little shiny-like to trust his continued survival to beings he didn’t know. But he could still trust his brothers, and that was enough. If the worst of the bad options happened, Trace, Tidal, and Phase knew what to do and Cody, Stacks, and Bins had everything else under control.

Whatever way it went, Wolffe wasn’t going to let that piece of sarlacc shavit do anything else without making her pay for it.

He crouched near the door. She swept the room the same way every time: right, center, left. It took her about half a second. That was enough time.

He breathed as quietly as he could and kept his ears pricked for the slightest sound of someone coming. The seal around the door was airtight, but it was just thin enough that he could hear things with his ear pressed against the right spot. The shard of bucket bit into his skin through the cloth. He gripped it tighter, ignoring the slight twinge from the cuts and the pull of scabbing blood sticking to it.

Footsteps.

His heartbeat picked up in his ears. He kept his breath slow, even, and quiet. The door clunked and slid open.

Right, cen-

Wolffe sprang at her, shard slashing for the the joint between her neck and her shoulder. Her arm came up just in time and there was a heavy impact and blood everywhere. He’d hit something important.

Sing snarled at him and aimed a kick between his legs that he just managed to side step. More blood when he pulled the shard clear with a missing chip. She punched at him with her right and he blocked, bone on bone hard enough to bruise both. Wolffe went for her stomach and she bent back, reaching for his arm with her injured hand. Her grip was weaker.

His nose crunched and he saw stars, kicked without seeing where it would go, and hit something solid. Sing hit the side of the door hard enough to clunk against the metal. Wolffe felt something warm trickling down his face.

More footsteps came down the hallway and Wolffe’s stomach dropped.

Sing took that moment of distraction to tackle him, right arm on his throat. They hit the deck hard enough to knock the wind out of Wolffe, throat clenching from the weight of the impact under her arm, but he kept his grip on the shard. She was on top.

His head already hurt anyway.

He saw stars again with the crack of bone and he’d definitely made the break in his nose worse, but her arm was off his throat.

Wolffe flipped them, trapping one of her legs between his and putting the shard right against the artery he saw pulsing in her neck.

“Got you, shabuir.” Wolffe spat blood in her face.

Sing scowled, but kept still, the shard twitching with every beat of her heart.

The other footsteps got to the door, and Wolffe could tell just by the gait-

“Thank the ka’ra.”

The tension melted out of Wolffe at the sound of his vod’ika’s voice.

///

Plo stared at the number he’d taken from their ship’s computer. Around the low end of average for a member of the Order and confirmation of something he already knew. Master Vos hadn’t seen it. Plo would make sure it disappeared. But someone knew. Sing wouldn’t have run that test otherwise. Someone knew and was targeting the commander, _his_ commander. The suspect pool was as limited as it was stomach churning to contemplate.

“He’ll be okay, sir. His nose is set and I’ve put on a bacta patch. He’ll be good as new in no time.” Tidal reported behind Plo.

“Thank you, Tidal. Would you be willing to sit with him for a while?” Whether he said so or not, Wolffe wasn’t going to be left alone for a while.

“I would, but the captain’s taken that position already, sir.” Tidal’s relieved amusement was warm in the Force.

“Well, that’s good then. You’ve seen to Sing?” The question tasted rotten on Plo’s tongue.

“Oh, yeah. She’s dandy, sir.” The clouds felt acidic; it was a shamefully similar sensation to Plo’s own feelings.

“Thank you, Tidal. For everything.”

“Of course, sir; it’s my job. You’re having some food and drinking some more water too, sir. Abiik-Kemir’s orders.”

Tidal’s too by the tone. Plo laughed.

“Of course.”

///

Rex was doing almost the same thing as General Koon had around Abregado; Wolffe felt his shields around him. But he wasn’t like General Koon. His emotions were right there under the surface and Wolffe could feel them right next to his own. It felt weirdly normal and probably wasn’t intentional; just like it probably wasn’t intentional that he could feel the sore muscles and anxiety Rex was beating back like fire.

“I forgive you, you know,” Wolffe said quietly.

Rex stiffened next to him, nerves snapping like branches underfoot.

“I wasn’t sure, even when I felt it I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to put you in that place if it was nothing. That was _stupid_ and I’m so sorry-“

“Hey, I’m not saying I didn’t want to space you. It _was_ stupid and I’m going to punch you for it later. But I’m not mad anymore. You’re still my vod’ika, just like Cody. You’re not getting away that easy.”

Rex’s shoulders shuddered and Wolffe felt something heavy dissolve.

Maybe he did have gills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetii-Jedi, here more a general term for Force Sensitives  
> Shebs-Backside  
> Haran-Hell  
> Aliit-Family, Clan  
> Osik-Shit  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Utreekov-Idiot, Emptyhead  
> Di’kutyc-Idiotic  
> Shabuir-Extreme insult, jerk but much stronger  
> Ka’ra-Stars  
> Vod’ika-Little Sibling/Brother


	32. Ruhaa'tayli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on and older siblings are always the smart ones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title means Seen
> 
> I'm trying out the hovertext thing for the translations! Unfortunately, I don't think this type will work on mobile, but I'm still going to leave the translations in the bottom notes as well. Thank you for your patience!

Quinlan followed the lines to the ghost, the only being who hadn’t been more than a shadow since they’d come to the Abiik-Kemir’s ship.

It’d been over twenty years.

And that sunk in right about when Quinlan saw Ben in the café, hair still red and longer than it’d ever been when he was ‘alive’, same mask as the other Abiik-Kemirs, same full length clothes, signature marbled through with the Dark side like no Jedi was ever supposed to be.

And he wasn’t a Jedi. Not anymore. Not for over twenty years.

“Hello, Quinlan.” But his _voice_.

There was Outer Rim, old Mandalorian, and something else that Quinlan was choosing to ignore. But that same Coruscanti accent was still there. That was Obi-Wan, Ben.

“Hi, Ben.” Quinlan went to the caf machine.

Ben was bent over a cup of _tea_ for kriff’s sake; it looked like some things really couldn’t be burned out.

Quinlan felt like laughing.

“I remembered you.”

Quinlan’s chest clenched and he turned to Ben whose hands were white-knuckled around his mug.

“Yeah?”

Ben was looking at him from under the mask and Quinlan heard him take a deep breath.

“I would get these flashes. Things you said, your clan markings, getting into trouble with you.” Ben laughed wetly. “After the Temple,” he flinched, “after the Temple, I remembered your name.”

“I never forgot you.” And that had been something he’d learned not to talk about or push too hard on after way too long and more than a few pointed looks from Master Tholme.

“Really?” Ben sounded genuinely surprised, felt like it too if Quinlan could still read him right.

“Of course not, how could I forget you?”

Ben hesitated.

“For anyone normal-“

“You call your life normal?” Ben cut him off and they both laughed.

“Compared to yours?”

Ben laughed again and looked around the café. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Ben started forward, hesitated, then Quinlan felt him shrug off whatever it was. And he was hugging Quinlan. It was _Ben_. He was _alive_. And it was as solid as the durasteel under their feet.

“It’s so good to see you again.” Quinlan hugged back.

“You too, Quin.”

Quinlan laughed, Force soft and warm around them.

///

“Ms. Abiik-Kemir.”

“Ejasa, General Koon. At this point, I think the formalities are a bit much.” Ejasa offered Plo a cup of the citrusy smelling tea in the pot and he nodded.

“Please call me Plo, then.”

“Alright, Plo.” She poured the tea and Plo folded his hands around the cup.

Perfect temperature.

“I was hoping to discuss a few things with you.”

“Of course.” Ejasa’s voice was agreeable and diplomatic and Plo felt the dangerous ground he was treading on in it.

“You’ve done work all around the Outer Rim, correct?”

“We’ve been around. You go where the work is.”

“Indeed. How familiar are you with Ryloth.”

There wasn’t hide or hair of the new eggshells Plo found himself walking on all of the sudden.

“We’ve done a fair amount of work there. Still do whenever something catches our eyes.”

“So you’re reasonably familiar with the dangers of it?”

“Reasonably.” She sounded amused.

“You’re aware of the current conflict on and around the system.”

Ejasa’s shields tightened. “Yes.”

“And you’re also aware that the Republic has been running relief missions to planets that are under fire?”

Plo wasn’t certain if it was a good or bad sign that he could feel Ejasa not saying something pointed about that.

“I’ve heard something to that effect, yes.”

Plo nodded. “You were properly compensated for the work Silas and Rex did on Christophsis?”

“The credits came through a day after they came back.”

“Good.”

Ejasa let it rest for a second before she asked. “Are you looking to contract us again?”

“I was considering it. I’m relatively familiar with Ryloth myself, but having beings who’ve done active work there more recently would be very helpful.”

“Can I assume that it would be for a relief mission of some kind?” She asked as delicately as Plo was balancing on the eggshells.

“Yes. With what just happened with Sing, I think it would be best if we had people who’re at least familiar with the territory should anything else happen.”

“That sounds reasonable. What would you want us to do exactly?”

“Protective detail mostly. Potentially scouting or combat depending on how badly things go.”

Ejasa huffed a small laugh. “Depending.”

She took a sip of her tea. “I’ll have to talk it over with them, but we might be able to help you.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure.”

Plo drank some tea. Hot, bright, and as citrusy as it smelled. Delightful!

///

Anakin’s go bag was fekked. It’d exploded and its guts were everywhere. His favorite vibroblade was missing, his gauntlets were disassembled on his desk, and there were jetiise crawling around their _home_!

It was all _fine_.

Like an adult, he once again abandoned his stuff and went out to fix something in the engine room. It wasn’t like he was going to be around in a bit. It would be best if he left it in as good a state as he could before he went off to murder Jabba.

If the coolant pipe would stop sticking, it’d be great.

“What’re you doing with that?”

“Fixing it.”

“Sen’ika.” Ben sighed, sitting on the floor next to Anakin’s head.

“What, it needs to be fixed, look at it.”

“It’s looked like that since we put it in. Stop avoiding the subject.”

“What subject?”

“They’re not just going to slaughter us.”

“Sure, that’s not the Jedi way.”

“ _Ana_ kin.”

Anakin sighed and put down the hydrospanner before scooting back to look at Ben. Who didn’t have a mask on.

“What-“

“I locked the door. They’ve all seen my face anyway.”

“Wolffe and Tidal?”

“Do you really think either of those two is going to barge into a locked engine room?”

Well when he put it like that. “Still.”

“Anakin.”

“Okay, okay.”

Ben looked at him, wide and gentle eyed. Anakin felt too exposed. He cinched his shields and went back to the coolant pipe.

“You can still say no.” Ben still wanted him to do that.

“No, I really can’t.”

“You’re not betraying anybody by doing that, not if it’s what you need to do.” Ben shifted closer, cloth rasping against the textured durasteel.

“I’m one of the only people in the Morut who can get it done, ori’vod.” The hydrospanner slipped and Anakin flinched out of the way.

“Exactly. One of.”

“It’s not that I’m worried about.”

“Then what?”

Anakin scooted back to look at Ben again, the colors weren’t helping. He just had genuine curiosity and care on his face and it made Anakin feel a little like a Hutt the way he’d been talking.

“I’m not worried about Falling or anything like that. I know what I’m doing. It’s just.”

Anakin slid back under and the silence stretched, the clanging metal from him messing with the pipe the only thing breaking it.

“Just what?” Ben finally asked as the pipe gave way.

Anakin grabbed the new one that’d been sitting around since old Sith Empire.

“Just. There’s a lot of new stuff going on. And with that vision and jetiise crawling out of our ears. It’s the worst possible timing. Like we can’t do one thing now without ten other things falling on our heads at the same time.”

“Well you do have a little bit of time before you go in. Besides, we’ve been active for far longer than you have. I’m sure we can manage without you for however long this’ll take; we are the ones that taught you what you know. We won’t be helpless when the next things come; we have allies we can reach out to if we need.”

“Sure, sure, like Quinlan.”

“Like Quinlan,” Ben said easily, giving Anakin a half-hearted annoyed look as soon as it was out of his mouth.

“You knew him.”

“I did. I’d forgotten. Those healers did good work. I didn’t even need any painkillers for the headache when I put it together.” Ben’s eyes were far away and Anakin felt him digging around for something through the bond.

“Were you close?”

“I-“ Ben paused, eyes searching around the engine room. “I think so. It’s been so long, I can’t be sure.”

“He’s not so bad. For a jetii.”

Ben made an amused noise, shifting on the durasteel again. “Well if that’s where the bar is.”

“Hells no.”

“Good to know.”

Anakin looked up at Ben. “You’re more worried about it than I am, aren’t you.”

Ben looked at him, emotions locked down, except for through the bond where there was blue and brownish red crawling down the rose gold cables.

“Your first solo. It wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things, and on a bad day.” Ben looked away. “If I never see you like that again, it’ll be too soon.”

“I’m not arguing with that.” Anakin shuddered, cold despite the sauna of the engine room.

The new pipe clanked into place and Anakin picked up the sealant.

“I know you’re going to be fine. I can feel that now that it’s getting closer. It’s also what _I’m_ going to do. I haven’t done much since.” Ben choked audibly on the words and Anakin scooched back to glare at him properly.

“That still wasn’t you.” And the next time Anakin saw the demagolka he was going to choke him and see how he liked it; it wouldn’t make the full impact of what’d happened on that kriffing planet, but it was close enough.

Or, maybe he’d just drop the Count in a Sarlacc pit.

Or let Buir deal with him; either one would be fine.

“Maybe you should worry more about yourself, give me and your buir a break.”

“Put it on the list.”

Ben glared reproachfully at him and Anakin counted it as a win for both of them.

“I’m being serious, Sen’ika.”

“So am I, Ben. Think about it. Even before you showed up-“

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“Okay, sure.” Anakin felt the ice shards through the bond and sent warmth down, hugging Ben through the bond before he slid out from where he was laying to do it for real.

“After the official briefing, if Buir doesn’t make us do it first, we’ll all sit down, us and Neon, and talk about everything, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Anakin squeezed Ben hard before he let go and got up to go wash all the grease off.

“You’re just leaving that there?” Ben called after him.

“My kindly ori’vod is going to take care of it for me since he came in to talk while I was working on something.”

“See if I try to help you anymore.”

“Thank you so much for volunteering, real nice of you.”

“I hope you fall in a gundark nest.”

///

Quinlan wasn’t torn between wanting to know something and being afraid of finding out very often anymore. He didn’t enjoy being stuck like that any more than he had when he’d been learning to use his abilities properly. But there he was, staring at an access panel like a kriffing idiot. He had a hand ready to take off one of his gloves and he’d stopped in his tracks, unable, for some stupid reason, to tell if it was the Force or his own nerves making him feel like he shouldn’t do that. And of course, that was when Ben’s little brother came down the hallway.

Those masks were really inconvenient sometimes. Then again, the fidgeting was informative. Sort of. That was a lot more helpful when Quinlan at least kind of knew the being in question.

“Are you going to use that door today?” It was amazing how well someone could replicate that same kind of sarcasm, it must’ve been a family thing.

“I was thinking about it, yeah.”

Silas nodded and proceeded to lean against the wall.

“It’s not that interesting, you know. It’s literally a linen closet.”

“You can tell a lot about people from what they keep in their linen closets.”

He snorted and Quinlan stepped away from the door. No use snooping if there was someone there to watch you do it. He wasn’t going to spend all day stuck like an idiot anyway.

One awkwardly long pause of pretending there hadn’t been any invasion of privacy intended later, Silas finally broke the silence.

“You knew Ben?”

Quinlan laughed. “I feel like you could ask your brother that question.”

Should, probably should. Quinlan wasn’t in the position to lecture him about being nosy. But should.

Silas shrugged. “I could, but I’m here right now. May as well ask anyway.”

Quinlan nodded, suppressing a laugh. “Okay, you know him now.”

“I feel like you could ask him that.”

“Mir’sheb.” Quinlan was inordinately proud of getting Ben’s brother to laugh.

“I didn’t know you jetiise knew any Mando’a. Figures, you’d learn the insults.”

“Language of the Outer Rim.”

Silas snorted again, pressing into the wall a little before leaning forward again.

“You spend a lot of time out here?”

And they were back to the interrogation. “I have to work, don’t I?”

“What kind of work is there on Tatooine? This place is a dustball.” One he’d kill to protect from the way he was eyeing Quinlan from under that mask.

“A dustball with a Hutt and a family of powerful Force Sensitives,” Quinlan said, keeping any inflection out of his voice.

“The only way someone knows their way around Mos Espa like that is being there a lot longer than you could’ve been since we were on Coruscant.”

There was the Mando.

“Well, there’s still the Hutt.”

“And the Order cares about what the Hutts do?” There were vibroblades under those words.

“They do when there are Sith artifacts in play.”

“You’d have better luck on Nal Hutta.”

“I have had better luck on Nal Hutta.”

Silas let out a single, sharp laugh. “At least someone’s had good luck on that shavithole.”

“Don’t tell me Ben’s the one who taught you sabacc.”

“On Nar Shaddaa like a proper scoundrel.” The last two words were accompanied by a perfect copy of Ben’s accent that had both of them laughing.

“Seriously though, don’t play either of them, you’ll lose everything you have,” Silas said after a minute.

“Seriously, why were you on Nar Shaddaa?”

“We go where the work is.” Silas shrugged again.

“Of course.”

“Why were _you_ on Nar Shaddaa? I thought Jedi were supposed to avoid that kind of thing.”

“The obvious ones are.”

“How do you not obviously look like a Jedi?” That was accompanied by an incredulous once over of Quinlan’s robes and GAR issue armor.

“The same as how you all don’t look like Mandalorians are supposed to all the time.”

There was another awkwardly long pause.

“Is that. That’s weird for you, right? Ben wearing beskar’gam.”

Quinlan couldn’t help but laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And laugh some more.

“Ah, honestly, that’s probably one of the least weird parts of the whole thing.”

“Really?” And Quinlan was laughing again at the amount of skepticism in Silas’ voice.

“Ben was.” Quinlan paused; realizing how different it was to think about it all was like a slap in the face.

“Obi-Wan wasn’t the type to break rules like that when I knew him. He’d go off the books sometimes, but it was usually someone else dragging him along and him pulling their ass out of the fire.”

“That’s different alright.”

“You telling me he doesn’t pull your ass out of the fire?”

“Oh no, he does that pretty much every day. It’s more the him getting dragged along; that’s mostly a token protest.”

“That sounds about the same as when I knew him.”

There was something very warm and light in the air around the words.

“What do you do, anyway? I know shadows are kind of spies, but, like, what does the Order even need spies for anyway?”

“Shadows look for Sith artifacts, my job’s a little more…concrete than that.”

“Right. And that’s why you’re following us around.”

Okay. “I wasn’t here for any of you. But as a Jedi, I’m also supposed to keep an eye out for any sign of Sith activity. You and your family were targeted by the leader of the CIS, who’s also a Sith, that makes it my business to keep an eye on you while I’m here.”

“And Ben had nothing to do with that at all.” Silas sounded smug.

Why were Outer Rim womp rats always so annoyingly nosy?

“What do you think?”

“You’re not so bad for a jetii.”

Quinlan laughed a bit. “Thanks. That’s real nice of you.”

“Hey, that’s a complement around here.”

///

“What happened?” Wolffe corned Rex in his room.

“It’s not-“

“So help me, if you say it’s not important, I’m going to kick you. Spit it out.”

Rex sighed and jerked his head into the room. Wolffe followed, noticing on the way in that Neon had hidden somewhere else for a while. Rex sat on his bed, fingers curled on his legs. Wolffe could almost hear him ticking over what he was going to say from across the room.

“We knew they weren’t operating independently.” Rex finally started after a few minutes.

“Yeah.” That’d been obvious since day one of the whole mess.

“Their network is bigger than we thought. A lot bigger.”

“How big are we talking?”

Rex’s eyebrows furrowed, something like a shiver going through the room and Wolffe took a preemptive seat on the floor.

“Boonta Eve Attacks big.”

“You mean…”

Rex nodded, the same realization Wolffe felt in his eyes.

“That…makes a lot of sense, actually. And they told you that?”

“Not exactly, but the way they talked about it, they didn’t have to.” _I could feel it_ , Rex didn’t say.

“Okay. So, how’s that work? Were they in charge or?”

“I don’t know what role they played. I know that they don’t all know each other. I know that some of the beings who follow the same kind of interpretation they do aren’t friendly. To the point of leaving them to the rancors on purpose. I know that they had something to do with that huge attack on the Zygerrians years ago. And-“ Rex cut himself off; Wolffe heard him biting the words.

He was shocked, and not shocked at all. The Boonta Eve Attacks were exactly the kind of thing someone like the people Rex was with would do. It made complete sense. And made everything that much more complicated given that there were multiple charges that carried the death penalty on the heads of everyone who’d participated by order of the Senate, the Trade Federation, and the Hutts.

“And what?”

Rex’s eyes darted to Wolffe’s face again. “Their leader, Alor, made an offer.”

Osik. “What kind of offer?”

Rex took a deep breath. “They offered to go to the bolt with the Republic for us and our brothers.”

Wolffe was stunned. He went to say something, lost it in that, shut his mouth with a click.

“As in-“

“As in go to war with the Republic along with and for us as soon as they have the resources and bodies together.”

Wolffe had been hit in the chest. He stared up at Rex who was making a face like he was sorry he’d ever said anything. Wolffe looked at his lap and back up at Rex. The face was still there. Kriff.

“That’s, ah-“

“Yeah.” Rex shook his head. “Thing is…”

“You don’t think-“ Wolffe couldn’t say it out loud, brain fuzzing around the edges when he even thought about it.

“No.” Rex didn’t believe that any more than Wolffe did.

“We need to tell Cody. Bly too if he’s in the next time we see him.”

“I know, I know, but this isn’t the kind of thing-“

“I’m not a di’kut. Obviously we can’t tell them over a comm.” Wolffe was getting back to being able to breath again.

“That’s not the only thing.” Rex sounded like the words were being torn out of him with a dull vibroblade.

“Kriff, what else?”

Rex’s eyes darted to the door and went glassy. Wolffe could _feel_ him looking for anybody outside. Come to think of it, Wolffe had felt a low level buzz of things that definitely weren’t his since Rex had let him borrow his shields. Wolffe needed a piece of flimsi and a pen at this rate.

Rex came back, eyes sharp on Wolffe’s. “They’re gunning after the Hutt.”

“Like Jabba? Like the same Hutt we spent a week negotiating for hyperlanes lanes with Jabba?”

“Yeah.”

“Kriffing fek.”

“I can’t even blame them,” Rex said darkly. “The things that happen on this planet.”

He shook his head.

“You’re going to help them with it too, aren’t you?” Wolffe wasn’t even surprised at that either.

Kriffing trouble-magnet vod’ike.

“It’s a tar pit in there, Wolffe; I can’t just sit here and-”

“Okay, okay, I get it. It’s kriffing dini’la, but I get it.” And nine fekking Corellian hells, but Wolffe almost wanted to help.

He was dar’manda; that was it.

And that wasn’t even it. “What else. Get it out now while I’m still numb from that.”

Rex almost laughed before his face went deadly serious. He bit his lips and Wolffe’s stomach dropped. What could be worse than what he’d already said?

“I was on the edge, vod. I. I almost Fell.” Rex sounded like a scared cadet again.

“Like the Jedi talk about Falling. Like, Fell, Fell.”

Rex nodded jerkily. “I didn’t realize that was what it was until I thought about it later. But. I was right on the edge.”

“And you haven’t told anybody.”

Rex shook his head.

“Kriff.” Wolffe got up and sat next to him on the bed.

He wrapped an arm around Rex’s shoulders and tried to ignore how it felt like Kamino all over again in the worst possible way.

Okay. “Do you know why?”

Rex laughed bitterly. “Can’t forget it.”

There was way too fekking much of that going around.

“It wasn’t. It’s too easy; there hasn’t been anything since that made it less.” There was a cold fear going down Wolffe’s spine that definitely wasn’t his.

And a lot of confusion that definitely was. “What’re you talking about, vod?”

Rex leaned away from him, eyes searching the empty wall across from them. After a second he came back, sitting at attention.

“Have you ever seen General Koon kill someone with just the Force?”

Wolffe blinked Abregado out of his eyes. “Well, not anything properly alive, no. But I can see.”

Oh. “Did you?”

The carefully hidden twist of Rex’s face answered the question without a sound. He shook his head and looked down at his hands. Something that tasted like self-disgust coated Wolffe’s tongue.

“It was too easy, and all I could think about. It was so easy; I didn’t even have to _touch_ him. And all I could see.” Rex looked at his hands again and clenched them in his lap.

Wolffe was breathing shame with a thick coat of fear under it. Everything he’d ever heard about the darjetiise was on a very unhelpful loop in his head as he tried not to connect that to his brother. The idea of those two things being the same broke Wolffe’s head to even think about.

“But you came back. Obviously you came back, that means something. Has to.”

Rex looked up at the ceiling before he looked back at Wolffe, that fear still thick in the air around them.

“I almost didn’t, Wolffe.”

And Wolffe felt so cold all of the sudden.

“You have to tell Ejasa.” They’d agreed to help; if they were willing to go to war, then that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker.

“Not now. They’re busy-“

“Look what happened last time you kept something to yourself.”

Rex flinched and it made Wolffe feel guilty as all hells, but it wasn’t the time to pull punches.

“You have to talk to her. If she’s the one training you, then she needs know; it’s not like they’re going to scrap you.” One look at how protective they were around the generals, at how they lived, made that clear. “But if you don’t tell them and, ka’ra forbid, you do Fall. They’re going to be blind sided and they might have to-to kill you.”

Wolffe’s arm tightened around his brother and he didn’t think about what that would look like. Rex’s shoulders tensed.

“Look. Tell her while I’m still here. Maybe that’ll make it easier, you know, if it’s not just you.”

Rex leaned into Wolffe’s shoulder, as grey as a Star Destroyer, and Wolffe thought about battle plans and what the hell they were supposed to do about all this Force osik.

///

Shmi had known this was coming. Since that night, she’d known. And she’d hoped that it wouldn’t be as anxiety provoking as it clearly was. Something needed to be done for the next time a conversation about Falling needed to be had. But she could think about that later. For the time, she was going to be very grateful for Commander Wolffe being as practical as he was.

She telegraphed her movements very carefully, giving Rex time to pull away before she squeezed his forearm. He looked up at her so like how Ben did sometimes and her heart twisted.

“Thank you for telling me, Rex. That’s the hardest part of learning like this. When it’s all theoretical, it’s easy to not see that kind of thing. And once you do, you can’t ever look away from it.”

The fear in his eyes was like a mouthful of citric acid in the Force and she fought the desire to hug him like she would’ve for Silas or Ben. Instead she squeezed his arm again and moved closer, resettling in the chair next to him.

“It’s human, if not sentient nature to feel that way. I can’t tell you how many beings I’ve known who’ve felt the same as you. But with the Force, it’s different. It can make it feel like your lowest moments are the ones that define everything about you. Especially when it’s all so close.”

“It gets better with distance?” Skepticism was better than fear; that was a start, even if it was a defense mechanism.

“No, but it gets easier to understand the difference between the Dark’s influence and your own nature with experience. It takes strength to be around and use the Dark without letting it completely rule you, even in the parts that aren’t as dangerous. And you have that strength, Rex; you always have. It’s just being tested now, probably for the first time in your life. The first Fall is always the worst, but you managed to pull yourself back from it, and that tells me that you’re someone who can be trusted, even if you don’t feel like you can right now.”

Rex clenched his hands, something raw in the Force. “It’s too easy; that shouldn’t be that easy.”

_It’s not right._ He whispered in the bond without seeming to realize he had.

Shmi wrapped an arm around him, mindful not to trap him or squeeze him too hard.

“Maybe it shouldn’t be. But it is, and I can’t tell you how to deal with that, I’m sorry. What I can tell you is that being conflicted, feeling the way you do, it’s a good sign. It means that you’re giving that power the right kind of weight. I’d be more worried if you weren’t bothered by it at all.”

Rex took a breath, hesitated, and took another one before looking up at her. “Did it bother you?”

Shmi kept eye contact. “Yes. The first time, I was horrified. Even though it let me protect A-Silas, I felt like I was the same kind of slime we’d fought so hard to get away from.”

She heard him turning that over while he looked at his hands again.

“What made it better?” He asked, a quiet kind of hurt Shmi felt deep in her core in his voice.

“Time. Time and remembering that if I hadn’t done what I had, I never would’ve seen my son alive again, never would’ve seen him grow up.”

Rex finally unclenched his hands and he looked up at her, the hurt and the shame and the fear packed away behind durasteel shields that were like a ‘saber in the chest to feel. There was a whole Star Destroyer of beings above their heads.

“How would you feel about getting off planet for a while?”

///

Rex stood elbow to elbow with Wolffe, feeling Ejasa and Silas in the back of his head with Ben. Wolffe was sitting in the same space, a warm, familiar buzz sitting in a place he remembered that buzz being. It was yaim’la. The echo of that same feeling from Wolffe was making a warm feedback loop that was making Rex feel more at ease the he had since the whole thing had started. And that was something they should probably look into once they’d dealt with everything else, but Rex honestly didn’t care. The weight on his chest was gone. Neon was settling into his own, Rex hadn’t been tossed out on his shebs, and he was getting off planet with a whole battalion of brothers. He hadn’t been locked out of that either, even if he’d deserved it.

The LAAT landed in front of them and Rex saw everyone but him and Ben try to protect themselves from the sandblast. Ben shook his head and a cascade of sand dropped from his hood to the serene background of General Vos cursing. Rex snorted and ducked his head, watching the grains land on his feet before he climbed on board behind Wolffe, who was also still cursing about the sand.

General Koon gave the order and they were climbing.

“Good riddance.” Wolffe spat over the helmet comms.

“Yeah.” Tidal leaned against the wall next to Rex, medkit in hand, exhaustion steeped in the Force around him like shig.

Ejasa and Silas reached out for one more goodbye and Rex got drawn alongside Ben. He felt Wolffe slip in a bit, curiosity and confusion coloring it. They either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Rex got the same warm, buir-like brush of a hug and ‘stay safe’ from Ejasa, a sort of poke or elbow in the side of his shields from Silas of ‘come back in one piece’ and another warm brush from him before they both receded far enough away that he could only just barely tell they were still there.

He looked over and saw Wolffe tilting his bucket at him. Rex didn’t have any answers. He was still as confused about his inclusion in that kind of thing as Wolffe was. Although, Wolffe being in his head, and him being in Wolffe’s head, meant a bond of some sort. Maybe that was just the thing with Force Sensitive aliit? He got taken in by a completed bond, and the one with Wolffe was their own sort of aliit bond?

They docked on the Resolute and Rex could sense the welcoming committee outside. Ben’s shoulders tensed, nerves spiking. Rex caught General Vos moving to cover him as Rex did the same thing. The doors opened and Rex heard something happen over Ben’s connection in the bond that was cut off before he could read it properly, durasteel shields dropping into place with a harsh clang like flood doors. There was a sea of white and grey painted armor and brothers all moving around and pretending not to pay attention to whoever had just come on board, and that same feeling, yaim’la.

There were eyes on him the second he set foot on the Resolute’s deck. He hadn’t been going to wear his armor. After everything, after seeing outside of it, wearing the armor he’d been given to serve the Republic was starting to get uncomfortable. But he saw what Wolffe was trying to do. The recognition from the older brothers who’d been there the first time that bled into the shinies. There were almost more eyes on him than there were on Ben.

Rex nudged Wolffe in the ribs and felt the pride as the 104th acted as professional as a battalion of vode should.

The spell was broken by a vod in a command uniform running across the hangar, pushing through the crowd to get to General Koon.

“Sir, we’ve been ordered to divert to Hypori! The 212th and the 327th were forced to retreat with the generals still on planet!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi  
> Morut-Stronghold  
> Ori’vod-Older Sibling/Brother  
> Demagolka-A real life monster  
> Buir-Parent/Mom  
> Mir'sheb-Smartass  
> Osik-Shit  
> Di’kut-Idiot  
> Vod’ike-Younger Siblings/Brothers (the grammar for this is more similar to ad’ika than I realized before)  
> Dini’la-Insane  
> Dar’manda-The state of no longer being Mandalorian, basically Wolffe saying he’s going to hell  
> Darjetiise-Plural of Sith  
> Ka’ra-Stars  
> Yaim’la-Comfortable, familiar, a sense of at home  
> Aliit-Clan/Family  
> Vode-Siblings/Brothers


	33. Routed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gathers again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! Sorry for the huge delay with this. Thank you so much for waiting!

Ahsoka was numb. She couldn’t get Brazen and the rest of the 327th’s bomber’s dying screams out of her head, the image of fighter after fighter going up in flames out of her eyes. She’d thought they’d be okay; there’d been so many Destroyers, getting beaten had seemed impossible.

Master Qui-Gon and Master Secura were stuck under the mountain; it was a weight on her shoulders, something in her eyes her no matter where she looked. Cody, Stacks, Waxer, Boil, Wooley, Kix, Jesse, Sketch, Spire, the names rolled by like those news tickers. The entire 212th’s ground forces, their absences making the Negotiator feel dead and hollow.

Ahsoka squeezed her arm hard, took a deep breath and locked it all down, tried to ground herself in the Force, and got up.

Okay, if they were all stuck down there, what would a real commander do? What would Cody say to do? Priorities, that was what she needed. She had to get the information; she couldn’t do anything if she didn’t know anything. Any help that came would need to know what was going on, and she wasn’t going to be left out of the rescue because she wasn’t paying attention.

“Oddball, you’re with me. We’re going to the bridge.”

Their worry and fear was smoke that made her feel like her lungs were burning. Her eyes were still burning. She wasn’t going to cry, damn it. She was a padawan; padawans didn’t cry like crèchlings when there was work to do.

“Yes sir, Commander Tano.”

“Broadside?”

“Yes, sir?”

“If Admiral Yularen hasn’t had someone do it already, take a count. Find out how many men we have left and try to find out the same from the 327th.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on, Oddball. Let’s go.”

“Yes, sir.”

///

Cody was almost out of charge packs.

They’d gone right where the Seppies wanted them to. When the mountain came down on them, there’d been what felt like a legion of clankers on their heads like the charges going off was their fault. The lines to the primary comms node had been cut too, which made the equipment that hadn’t gotten damaged as useless as the garbled nonsense they’d gotten off the system before everything had gone to osik.

They were out of poppers but at least they’d plugged up where the clankers’d been getting in until they could get _out_.

“Stacks.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine when I say you are; now sit still!” Kix glared at Stacks before reaching into his kit.

“Do you know where Twitch is?” Cody really hoped they had at least one brother who knew their explosives with them.

Stacks looked up, wincing at whatever Kix was using to clean the cut that was dribbling blood in his eye. “I think he was over by the door.”

Of course.

The filters in Cody’s bucket were working overtime, rock and permacrete dust still turning like miniature storms in his headlamps. Red tinted emergency glow lighting gave everything a bloody looking cast his display couldn’t compensate for. They were still alive though. Not enough of them, but some. It’d be easier once they could move around again. They’d be able to get to some other survivors, see who else’d made it.

General Jinn and General Secura were bent over a holomap of the facility.

Cody kept his mouth shut while he slipped past and found Bly near the place scans said would be best to blast their way out of. Twitch was already there too; good, that was one less thing for him to worry about. Bly moved over to give Cody a spot to step into before leaning over Twitch’s shoulder again. Cody winced at the dust the younger brother was breathing. Wearing a bucket would make it harder, but with everything in the air it felt wrong to just let him breath that.

Bly glanced behind them before tapping his helmet and clicking on their private comms.

“You think we might have another Slick?”

Cody’s heart stuttered. Not again, not so soon after the last one.

“I don’t know.”

Bly leaned into him a bit. “I don’t think it could’ve been any of our vode. It’s not like this was airtight; all they’d need to know was the basics, and those were everywhere. It’s like you said, we can’t trust anyone but General Koon right now.”

“They knew we were coming.”

“It’s the only reason they would’ve let us get in that easy. That first contact felt like the fights on the Harrin-Rimma. It was hard enough to feel real without keeping us from getting anywhere, and now two high profile generals and two legions of vode are either dead or stuck under kilometers of solid rock behind the lines of an enemy blockade, with no support and no way to get out alive without a massive offensive that’ll take time and credits and be some kind of a disaster no matter which way it goes. Besides, they couldn’t have set a trap with that many cruisers without us noticing unless they knew exactly where we’d be coming from.”

Cody was grateful for the stone in his stomach; it was keeping it from turning. “Why? What’s the point?”

“Think about it. If the generals are the targets and we’re the weapons and we all make it out of this, they’re guaranteed to trust us more after being stuck like this. We’ll do our jobs and so will they and that’s what they want. If we don’t and they’re not, then that’s two potential threats to the conspiracy eliminated…and two ARCs who have reputations for being protective of their men and their generals, one of which already proved he was willing to bend the rules for brothers he cares about.”

There was metal in Cody’s mouth. “You think someone knows how-”

“I think that if you’re being spied on at all, that report from Christophsis will’ve painted a target on your backs. All of you. Look at what happened over Abregado.”

Kriff. “You really think the leak could be one of the generals.”

Cody hated himself for saying it, and hated himself even more for being ashamed for thinking about that. He felt Bly tense. More hatred for asking a brother who liked his general as much as Bly did that kind of question. At least that part was all Cody.

“I-. I hope not, vod.” Bly sounded delicate and wrong and the stone in Cody’s gut got heavier.

Everything else. Cody couldn’t regret telling him, not with where they’d wound up, but the amount of wear the knowledge of all the things they’d found right inside their own skulls seemed to take out of everyone. It was crushing in the dark.

“General Secura’s not a fan of the Council, Bly. If it was one of them.” Cody couldn’t make himself say it. Somehow, General Jinn potentially knowing about the chips felt like a less visceral betrayal than him deliberately leading them into a trap like that.

More guilt coated shame piled on and Cody redirected himself, looking over Twitch’s assessments. Bly leaned into Cody again before going over to one of his medics to check on the injured. Cody switched back onto the external vocoder and backed off to see if they’d somehow gotten holo-comms working.

///

The 104th, 41st, and the Marines were on the way. Master Plo, Master Unduli, Barriss, and Master Mundi were all going to be there. It was a lot, but after. Ahsoka couldn’t be sure. The Blues were guarding her and acting like she wouldn’t notice. She wanted to scream at them, but she couldn’t tell if they were doing that because she was a _shiny_ , or if it was because it made them feel better to protect someone with so, so many clones, their brothers gone. And snapping wasn’t the Jedi way. She wasn’t going to embarrass Master Qui-Gon like that.

He would be back to be embarrassed or annoyed about that because anything else wasn’t something she was going to think about. That wasn’t the Jedi way either. She’d be worried about if she should worry about that or not when Master Qui-Gon was back.

Admiral Yularen was treating her like a crèchling too. Ahsoka knew she was young, but she was in a command position whether she should be or not. It was humiliating, getting talked to like a youngling in front of so many people. She kept her back tall and straight like Master Plo and stayed on the bridge whether the admiral liked it or not like Master Qui-Gon.

The Force was wild around her. Ahsoka knew she was doing that to herself. She took another page from Master Qui-Gon’s book and knelt, going into an easy meditation position. She hadn’t felt what was around her through her own feelings. The clones all had the same sort of gaping wounds of fear and loss she did; only the Light kept away the guilt and shame that rose up from feeling that. They’d lost more than she had. She’d only lost her Master. But she’d have to be Force Null, blind, deaf, and stupid not to see that the clones considered each other family, and literally thousands of their brothers might be dead for all they knew.

Ahsoka had gotten enough clarity to sense that Master Qui-Gon and Master Secura were still alive. (Master Qui-Gon had put up incredibly tough shields in the bond and that just made her think about those weeks after Geonosis all over again.) She couldn’t sense individual lights at the distance they’d been forced away from Hypori, but she could sense that a lot of the 212th and 7th were still there, blending together into torches in the Force.

That was something. That was something. There was backup coming, and the Light was saying that it was going to be okay. They were going to get out of it. Maybe not in one piece, but they were going to get out. Master Qui-Gon, Master Secura, and the clones. She was going to make sure of it.

///

Ahsoka’s distress was a living thing in the back of Qui-Gon’s head. He was proud when he felt her sinking into the Light, letting go of the things that were eating into her, but he wanted to be there, to do as he’d said he would. A master shouldn’t be forcing their padawan to rescue them, let alone both a master _and_ a fully fledged knight. It was shameful.

Knight Secura was going over the charges Twitch and her men had placed. Most of the 212th and 7th were outside. At least the 8th, 9th, and 10th hadn’t made it planetside as far as they knew. Most of them should still be aboard Knight Secura’s Destroyers, however many of those remained.

Qui-Gon made his way over to the tiny medic station they’d set up and projected as much peace and calm as he could muster. Whether they were Sensitive or not, one couldn’t underestimate the power of the Light when it came to recuperation. Kix and Wooley felt so overwhelmed in the Force it made Qui-Gon wince. Even with the 327th medics’ help, there were a lot of injured inside. Most of them, thankfully, were minor injuries, but it added up.

“Charges are set; everyone get back!” Knight Secura broke Qui-Gon out of his trance and he scrambled to help the medics move the wounded who couldn’t move themselves out of the way.

The Force stirred in the flurry of activity, and soon tens of men, Qui-Gon, and Knight Secura were pressed against the furthest wall from the place they were about to blow open. Qui-Gon couldn’t get any clarity from the Force, like the dust in the air had churned it into something opaquely bloody and muddy.

“Will this bring more of the mountain down on our heads?” He asked Knight Secura as quietly as he could manage while the men got ready to set it off.

“I checked the schematics, scans, and math myself. It’ll be okay.”

Qui-Gon released the trickle of fear into the Force and spread himself a bit further, covering the men behind them.

A breath in.

Knight Secura gave the order.

Light and sound and heat erupted in a fraction of the blink of an eye.

Qui-Gon coughed, half choking on the new cloud dust that blew back at them and heard Knight Secura doing the same. The men clearly had the right idea with those helmets.

Through the new-found ringing in his ears, Qui-Gon heard excited shouting; hope and endorphin-adrenaline soaked nerves surged through the Force in equal measure. Fortunately the men outside their little cage had mercy and used their nightvision instead of their headlamps.

The men cleared the path efficiently and helped move their injured out. Qui-Gon was handed a respirator that he took with a small twinge of guilt, but he didn’t dare to try and refuse Coric’s glare when he gave it to him. To be fair, his chest immediately felt looser when he got clean air in his lungs. The ringing in his ears was far more of an inconvenience.

Yes, clearly helmets were a wise investment.

Qui-Gon forced himself to his feet, but kept the respirator. Cody was at his side again, shields newly tightened.

“Orders, sir?” The commander spoke loudly enough to cut through the ringing.

“Get in contact with the ranking officers and see to the wounded. They have unconditional priority.”

There was a nanosecond of a pause. “Yes, sir.”

Cody was away from Qui-Gon’s side and replaced by Stacks.

///

The 104th got there first, and the second they pulled into the dead space the Destroyers were sitting in, Ahsoka could feel the familiar signature of one of the Abiik-Kemirs and… Holy kriff.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Ahsoka was racing to the turbolift, determined to get down to the hangar before anyone else. She heard Contrail and Tag running after her but she didn’t even care about the honor guard. She had to get to them, to talk to them before they talked to anyone else. She didn’t think they’d be dumb enough to just walk into Yularen without a plan, but there weren’t a lot of people to run interference if he decided to investigate before they’d gotten everything together.

The turbolift wouldn’t move fast enough and it was only the keen awareness of Contrail and Tag watching her that kept Ahsoka from continually pressing the buttons like a crèchling. Instead she bounced on the balls of her feet and rushed out before the doors were even all the way open. The rest of the men all snapped to their feet as soon as they saw her and she waved at them to go back to whatever it was they’d been doing. She couldn’t stand still, kept bouncing on her feet as she felt Master Plo getting closer.

The risk, holy _kriff_! At least with Wolffe, he was kind of covered. Master Plo was good at covering beings like that. But.

Shavit, with Master Unduli and Master Mundi getting there in less than a day!

The shuttle landed and Ahsoka was at the ramp, still bouncing. Master Plo was the first off, and he gave her a warm, gentle hug that made Ahsoka feel embarrassingly like she was a centimeter from blubbering like an actual baby (a-karking-gain) as soon as he was on the Negotiator’s deck.

“Are you alright, Little ‘Soka?” He smoothed over the Force like Master Qui-Gon did and it made her eyes _burn_.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you for getting here so fast, Master Plo. They haven’t been trapped there long, but every second they’re down there.” She pushed down the upset and the fear and drew on the Light around her, trying to ignore the lump in her throat.

“Let’s see what we can do, then. Commander Wolffe?”

Wolffe stepped up and nodded to Ahsoka respectfully before he went to where he usually stood whenever they were on comms.

“Major Trace, go over the casualty reports Broadside sent us with him and Commander Oddball; get the details, please.”

“Yes, sir.” Trace took off with a brief salute to Ahsoka on his way.

“Let’s get to the bridge.”

///

They hadn’t seen any clankers since they’d blown their way out. Cody had a bad feeling that one of the night shifts was going to get surprised.

After the chaos had settled down, they’d consolidated into one place, everyone all together. He could see the blows with every hole in the ranks, read them in the grim, determined survival of every vod who could stay on his feet.

The talk with Bly kept rolling around Cody’s head, eating into the two hours of rest he was supposed to get before his shift. There was no choice but to trust the generals. There was no choice but to try and get out on the faint hope that the generals were enough to get a rescue. There was no choice but to hold onto the idea that this hadn’t been someone offing the generals with them as collateral damage. Rolling over and dying wasn’t an option. But trusting all of that to hope felt like doing the same thing. They’d come to the rescue over Abregado, but General Jinn was friends with General Koon. It’d be stupidly naïve to think that hadn’t played a bigger part than either of them had tried to make it look like.

General Jinn was friends with General Koon; it was the same policy as before, everyone, both on the Council and with friends on the Council, had to be suspect. Just because General Koon was clear didn’t mean General Jinn was too.

Cody had to keep telling himself that.

He had to keep repeating it.

Cody could feel another something violent crack in him at the idea of so many brothers dying for an aruetii; or worse, dying because they were assigned to someone the Council considered an aruetii.

Fooling himself wasn’t going to do anything but waste time, neither was boiling about a theory when he needed as much rest as he could scrape up.

He rolled over and tried to sleep, bucket digging into his head and the noise of medics trying everything they had to keep everyone alive seeping into his half-awake dreams.

///

“General Koon, permission to speak freely?”

Ahsoka felt like she should leave; she wasn’t going to do that if this was about what (who) it sounded like.

“Of course, Commander Wolffe.”

“General, we don’t know anything about Admiral Yularen except his service record. General Mundi is one of the beings who voted against the Abiik-Kemirs. Those, _assets_ , aren’t the kind you bring into a situation you don’t control. They need to stay hidden. This isn’t what they agreed to, and dragging them into it will expose all of us and them to a completely unnecessary risk. That’s not even counting the potential fallout with their crew.” Wolffe’s anger was as sharp as a vibroblade in the Force.

Ahsoka tightened her shields and huddled a little further down in her seat.

“You’re correct, commander, but the fact remains that they are in that danger whether they participate or not. They are aboard the Resolute at this very moment. All it would take is someone noticing them. If they are with us and actively assisting us in those rescue operations, then we have some control, and in turn, they’ll have some control.” Master Plo had the familiar patient tone that meant he was done reconsidering whatever it was.

“And if they say no?” The words were cold under the nonchalance.

“Then we’ll find another way, but as it stands, this is the best option. Anyone in the Abiik-Kemir clan is fully capable of hiding themself, but certain parties are not so adept. Master Mundi is not only attentive, but is guaranteed to be even more sensitive to any foreign Force presences here than usual. The same goes for Master Unduli. If we can give them two strong ones to focus on, it may help us obscure the ones we don’t want them to pay attention to.”

Wolffe deflated a little. “You know one of them won’t see it as a choice at all, general.”

Master Plo nodded and Ahsoka was kind of wishing she’d left with the exhausted sadness he gave off before he drew his shields tight.

Fek Hypori; Ahsoka wasn’t going to feel bad for thinking that no matter what the Code said.

///

Cody’s shift was almost done when he heard it: that high pitched squeak he’d been listening for since he’d laid down to try and sleep before his shift. He had his blaster up in a second, sounding the alarm right before he saw the first commando.

He fired and hit right on target, arms twinging with the recoil. Brothers flooded the opening he was guarding, all still in full armor, some more awake than others.

There was metal on the floor and more squeaking.

The alert had made it to General Secura.

She flew past them, lightsaber beating back the red in a blaze of blue. The hallway lit up violet from emergency lighting, blue and red bolts, lightsabers, and crazy blue-skinned generals who went right into the line of fire.

“Stick to the doors! Don’t let a single clanker past,” Cody ordered, moving back to the doors to give General Secura more room.

They gathered, orderly firing groups clean around each other. No sign of General Jinn yet, but it’d be better if they had a Jedi to help guard the injured anyway if it came down to that. Besides, General Secura was tearing her way through them just fine, clean, efficient strikes taking off heads and limbs, small Force pushes running the wreckage into other clankers that got too close. It was like the bolts couldn’t even touch her.

Cody kept his eyes on the sides, shooting at the clankers that managed to get past the whirlwind in front of them. He could smell the firefight through the filters; the medics were yelling just inside, organizing everyone left to protect who they could. He could hear the echoes that meant the battle had gone around the other sides of the space they’d found.

The wave was never-ending. For every one droid they shot down, there were five more in its place. For every five General Secura took down, there were another ten close enough to be a problem.

“Does anybody have a popper?” Cody gritted his teeth and moved back another few centimeters, following General Secura.

He heard the question go through the channels and cursed at how low his charge pack was getting.

Finally, just when he was reaching the last dregs of the pack, someone said yes. It almost felt like Cody was seeing starlight when he heard it, order coming out to get to the door right karking now without him even thinking about it. He ducked, switched out the dead pack for the most alive one he had, and was back up to shoot down a commando that’d gotten close enough to try using those blades they’d decided to put in for some kriffing reason.

Cody went to move back again and felt something under his foot. He stepped over the brother, trying to memorize the pattern painted onto his armor in that split second. They were almost inside the doorway.

A shiny 327th brother ran up, firing into the clankers still moving on them. “The popper, sir!”

Cody took it and threw as hard as he could.

“Eyes!”

His were shut just before it hit. The sound of the electrical storm of the popper was a very close second to the sound of a ton of clankers hitting the ground as the best thing Cody had heard since the campaign had started. The clankers were still coming, but they had some space.

“Come on, give the general some support!”

They surged forward, blasters blazing behind a barrier of blue.

///

Ahsoka managed to slip the Blues just in time. None of them had wanted to risk following her into the vents. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be there when they brought Ben over, but there was no way she was missing that. Seeing Ben again was going to be weird, but even without the Force, she knew he could help. He could do something; she even had a feeling he would. Rex was less of a question of if and more of a question of how far along in his training he was if she’d learned anything about the clones at all.

She slipped into the bay she’d heard them clear the Resolute’s shuttle to land in, wrapping herself in the Light and muffling the noise around her. Master Plo probably knew she was there already, but none of the guards had seen her yet and he hadn’t acknowledged her if he did.

Master Plo, Wolffe (who might’ve also already known she was there), Trace, Oddball, and Broadside were waiting, some more of the 212th’s pilots right there with them.

The shuttle came in, that eerily familiar, being-but-not-Force-Sensitive signature she remembered inside. Two of them. She’d known they were going to risk Rex, but she hadn’t thought they’d risk him being on board when Master Unduli and Master Mundi were going to get there any minute. Ben made a little more sense; at least he could fight his way out, even if the idea of having to face that again made Ahsoka feel even sicker than she already did. Shavit, they’d both know she was there too.

Too late to worry about that.

The shuttle’s ramp descended and for a few seconds, there was a pause and the feeling in the Force was like everyone was holding their breath.

It snapped like a twig and Ben was coming down first. Ahsoka didn’t see any weapons and somehow, that was the weirdest part. As long as she’d been on the Abiik-Kemirs’ ship, they’d always been armed. Seeing one of them without weapons felt wrong even though Ahsoka was one hundred percent sure that he had some on him somewhere.

Rex was right behind him, and if Ahsoka hadn’t already known that the Force changed how people did things, she could’ve seen it right there. After getting to know the clones, she’d gotten a pretty good idea about how they usually moved and did things, personal variations aside. The difference was obvious, even though his armor was still exactly the same as on Christophsis. The shields just confirmed it.

Memories of the whirlwind of destruction on Geonosis went by her eyes and Ahsoka repressed a cold shiver of…not fear. What was the word? Apprehension? Yeah, that was it. Apprehension.

A bunch of 104th came after them, grey paint still looking weird after spending so much time just around 212th orange.

Apprehension aside, that knot in her gut untied itself a little more. That apprehension was a good thing; she knew exactly how deadly Ben could be and that could only be a good thing with what they were going to have to get through to get everyone back.

///

They’d gotten to a secondary comms room. They’d been climbing for a while before they’d gotten there, but Cody didn’t know how far they’d actually gone. His arms and legs were burning from carrying a brother most of the way, but it was worth it.

General Jinn had started trying to help with the healing again before Coric had forced him to rest, but Cody didn’t like how worn down he was looking. He didn’t seem like he was in any real pain at all, but he was getting twitchier and pissier by the hour and that look in his eyes was too much like the one from Commander Tano’s on Christophsis. General Secura looked exhausted too. Her lekku were drooping and she was _slouching_. Cody had never seen a Jedi slouch before. That wasn’t supposed to be something they were capable of.

Bly was hovering over both of them and it seemed like that might be just enough to keep them from trying to get up and do things.

Cody’s comm pinged. Finally a signal. He opened the thing and had to laugh a little. Normal daily flimsiwork type reports just sitting there. He shook his head and dismissed it, going over the numbers he could get to with signal access.

Those didn’t really tell him anything he didn’t already know.

Cody dug into one of the itches in the back of his head that’d been bothering him since the talk with Bly. A lot of the jammed data they’d missed was finally getting through, including the ones that hadn’t had the chance before the comms line had gotten crushed with them. There was a lot missing, but enough had gotten preserved to make out the overall shape of what’d happened.

It painted an incredibly ugly picture of the size or place of whatever leak they had. The Seppie ships had kept just out of sensor range until the Destroyers had been fully committed to the assault on the minimal blockade that’d been in place. Then they’d jumped in and flooded the whole system with turbolaser fire and fighter droids. It’d been fifteen Destroyers and hundreds of fighters against almost double that number of enemy cruisers and what looked like thousands of vultures and buzzes and most of the ones that’d been there to begin with hadn’t taken anywhere near enough damage to out them down. It’d been a planned slaughter from the start.

They’d taken a chunk out of General Secura’s Destroyers before Admiral Yularen had ordered the retreat and half lost another one while the fighters got back to the Destroyers. The 327th’s entire bomber complement had gotten destroyed, trapped between the anti-aircraft weapons set into the mountains and the cloud of fighters above.

Bly was right, they had been allowed to reach the surface and breach the factory.

Cody pushed aside the tangled mess of white-hot emotions that flared up in his chest and forwarded the whole thing he’d compiled to Bly and Stacks. He looked at General Jinn again. Someone who’d been trying to help so many brothers back onto their feet at that kind of cost to himself, someone who looked that exhausted and old.

Bly was (once again) absolutely right about where the leak could’ve, probably had, come from.

General Jinn didn’t look or seem like he would do something like that; the risks he’d taken to try and protect them all before made it even harder to see him that way. But leaks didn’t look like leaks; that was the point. Spies did all kinds of life threatening shavit to get the job done, just look at the Nulls. And it wasn’t like there weren’t things Cody had ignored or pretended hadn’t happened (how many unplanned, encrypted comms with General Ti). If he had to go down with the beings he was conspiring to use as weapons against the Republic or whoever else, it made sense to keep himself looking as innocent as possible. All the brothers down there would be more than enough to kill one exhausted Jedi (more than enough to kill two exhausted Jedi) even if it would cost them even more lives than they’d already lost.

There wasn’t a single brother who wouldn’t kill for what was happening to them and their _brothers_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a Translations
> 
> Osik-Shit  
> Vode-Siblings/Brothers  
> Aruetii-Traitor/Outsider


	34. Pay No Attention to the Signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue mission for the 212th and 327th begins

The amount of Dark emotions that were in the room was making everything worse. Ahsoka hung onto the Light with everything she had; every new person who wasn’t supposed to be there was like another test. Master Mundi’s suspicion wasn’t really a surprise (when Ahsoka thought about it) but it was cold anyway, Ben’s empty chill smelled like blood and burned meat, and that wasn’t counting everything from the clones. Commander Bacara felt like a walking puddle of dying, congealed blood in the Force: cold, slimy, and a sign that you needed to get out of wherever you were as soon as you could. That’d only gotten worse since Captain (Ahsoka wasn’t sure if she was supposed to use that title anymore) Rex had walked in shielded between Commander Wolffe and Ben.

She’d had to shut off the training bond behind her shields after the second hand pain and exhaustion from her Master had made her lose her grip for a second that was still blurry from the panic. The guilt had made everything worse. Kind of like how everyone was refusing to be the one to talk first and break the staring contest they’d gotten into.

Ahsoka looked over at Barriss. After a second she looked back, fear tucked away, and she shrugged. Of course that was when Master Unduli looked over, and Ahsoka didn’t know how Barriss managed with that kind of disapproval.

“You did warn us you were bringing unusual, contractors, Master Plo. After Christophsis, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. If we could proceed, Master Mundi.” Master Unduli stood up, hands at her sides and all eyes on her.

“Yes, thank you Master Unduli,” said Master Mundi as he got to his feet too. “This does change the approach somewhat.”

“Think of them as a resource.” Master Vos smiled the same way pirates did when they went for their blasters.

And Ben did the thing it looked like nobody but Master Vos expected and shushed him.

“If we could get to the task at hand, Quinlan,” Master Unduli said like a crèche master.

“Of course, General Unduli. General Vos was right, just consider,” Ben paused for a second. “Us. A resource.”

Everyone, clones included, either looked uncomfortably at Rex or pretended not to. The sudden cold snap of real Dark from Ben took care of that and Ahsoka felt her grip slip. Again. Fierfek. She took a second and breathed before she reached for the Light again and was relieved to find it right there under her feet, buried beneath the fear and guilt that were still making her feel too cold.

“I believe it would be best for Master Vos and Ahsoka to be with the team that goes into the factory. None of us have been able to contact Qui-Gon or Knight Secura since we arrived beyond knowing that they’re still alive. If the comms are still blacked out once you set foot on Hypori, that will be invaluable.” Master Plo charged through the second awkward pause of the meeting.

And then Ahsoka was the one everyone was looking at. She forced herself not to let her shoulders curl or her lekku twitch.

“Do you think you will be able to manage that, Padawan Tano?” Master Unduli looked down at her over Barriss’ head.

“Yes, Master Unduli.”

She could do that.

She _would_ do that.

There was no try.

///

“We’ll have to get as close to the surface as we can, sirs. They won’t be able to get the gunships down here without a fight.” If they were coming down at all. “The faster we get on and out, the better it’ll turn out. Depending on who’s close enough to help, they’ll be evenly matched at best and it’ll be a stalemate.”

General Jinn and General Secura were looking a little better after some (forced) rest, but they were both flagging and even with the situation as it was that was a death toll. Whatever optimism Cody’d had had died a bloody death at the confirmation of everything he’d somehow still had enough naïveté to try and be positive about. The secondary comms control was relatively defensible and a lot closer to the surface than they had been, but it wasn’t close enough. The air wasn’t as thin, which was helping the generals and the brothers who’d lost their buckets, but that wasn’t great either. There was still too much junk, even with what little fresh air was managing to filter its way down to them.

“Scouts are our best bet,” General Secura said, hitching herself a little more upright in the chair they’d managed to find for her. “We should send the fastest we have on the lines we can see to the surface. They keep track of how bad the route is and how long it takes and report back. Battalion comms are working now, so they send corrections for whatever hallways’ve collapsed while they go.”

General Jinn nodded, looking worn and creepily skeletal in the red light. “We move with the wounded as well; one of you takes the front, and the other brings up the rear. Stacks will come with us. Comms and slicers leave last with a heavy guard.”

“We’ll take the rear guard. I’ll need more guns, and we’ll have to consolidate all our charge packs too,” said Bly, a list from him popping up on Cody’s HUD.

“Of course. We’ll do that and have another shift of rests while the scouts go ahead.” General Jinn took a drink from his canteen.

Using the Force seemed to make them tireder than they were in the first place at that point. Neither of them looked like they were in any pain, but the wear and tear was undeniable. Everyone was sore, but Cody thought…it didn’t matter what he’d thought. They had to keep the generals off their feet as long as possible no matter what else was going on. Whether General Jinn was the leak or not, them getting out relied on him getting out alive if anyone came for them.

“We’ll handle it, sirs.”

“Thank you, Cody.” General Jinn and General Secura not arguing with that wasn’t making him feel any better about the situation.

///

Rex could _feel_ Bacara looking at him. Gree hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected, even if the room had been about what he’d thought it would when they’d talked through the plan. But in a gunship about to drop into an active war zone wasn’t the time to feel like one of his brothers was thinking about shooting him for everything that’d happened.

He looked in and the noise faded. Those cracks he’d felt were still there and the Dark was waiting for him; he felt that too. But his heartbeat was strong and steady in his ears and he could feel the Light making him stronger with every beat and breath. He tightened his shields again, opened his eyes, and ignored General Mundi looking at him too. Padawan Tano was leaning against the side of the ship and there was a background concern from Wolffe about what they were about to walk into might do to her.

The cloud of death they passed into when they hit Hypori's atmosphere didn’t almost knock him off his feet like it had over Christophsis, but he honestly couldn’t say whether that was because he’d gotten better at keeping his shields together or because he’d already gotten used to the feeling of having blood in his eyes or something like that. Not that it mattered. Wolffe had snapped his shields as tight as he could get them to go and he was leaning on Rex through the bond as they kept getting closer to a concentrated bath of it under their feet.

“One minute until we get to our drop-off point.” The pilot announced over the sound of canon fire that was louder than it’d been before.

“Right, final checks, let’s go, men!”

///

Qui-Gon was exhausted. The Force insisted that it was going to work out, but the exhaustion and his own increasingly bad temper were starting to make it difficult to feel that. He hadn’t been so badly overdrawn since he was a padawan and he was once again wondering if perhaps it would be simpler if he were one of the sort that was just in pain when they were overdrawn. It would be better for the men, that much was certain. Even through his own difficulty, he could sense Knight Secura reaching the ends of her own reserves as well.

Both of their respective commanders had done as they said. Qui-Gon had not realized that that entailed keeping them as immobile as they could manage while running the operations. Cody was staring to feel as worn as Qui-Gon did, and Bly wasn’t much better. Qui-Gon felt slightly worse about Bly. It seemed they had both silently agreed that it was his job to keep Qui-Gon and Knight Secura from doing anything they thought was stupid.

Neither he nor Knight Secura was making that job easy.

Through the haze of ever increasing exhaustion, ill temper, and overdraw fueled hopeless pessimism, Qui-Gon could sense an uptick in activity. They were getting ready to move. He took a moment to let himself feel the weight of it all, then forced himself to his feet. It felt like trying to move through preserves with durasteel limbs, but he was mobile, and it would get better the more he moved. He waved Knight Secura to stay seated. She needed her strength.

He made his way back over to the medics and the injured. Bly was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’d taken his own advice and gotten some sleep, then. He would need his strength as well. The guilt bit deeper when Qui-Gon ran over his ever more hazy memory and realized that if he wasn’t mistaken, neither Cody or Bly had slept while they’d been waiting for the scouts.

There wasn’t time before they would have to go; Qui-Gon could sense that much. There was also a strange kind of uncomfortable tension that he no longer had the wherewithal to puzzle out. He made a note about it and hoped that it would stick through whatever was about to happen.

Kix glared up at him from the side of one of the more injured parties who Qui-Gon had, shamefully, forgotten the name of.

“You should be resting, sir.”

“I’ll rest when we’re back aboard the Negotiator. How can I help?”

Kix glared up at him one more time before grudgingly making some room. He directed Qui-Gon to the trooper’s legs. The Force was sluggish, thickened with pain and the same hopelessness Qui-Gon was slipping further into as time went on. He centered himself once more and dug deeper, forcing past the haze and miasma of things that were clouding his senses and sense and conducted the Light into that sluggish stream, trying to give it strength.

The exhaustion rolled over him and it felt like the Force was the only thing keeping him upright. His minimal ability with that kind of manipulation was even weaker than normal and he could sense that it’d barely helped for the cost. But the trooper’s pain was eased somewhat if Qui-Gon was reading his signature correctly. That was worth it in the end.

///

Cody cursed his way over to the medics. Bly took his eyes off the generals for one minute and that osik happened. General Jinn was practically slumped over an injured brother and Cody could hear Kix ordering someone over with a stim-shot over the comms. Fekking hells.

That anger was at war with the other thing on the back burner and it was making his stomach twist with every bit of dirt shoveled down into that Sarlacc pit.

“We’ve got a path, General Jinn. General Secura and Bly are waiting for us over at her chair.”

General Jinn wavered for a second before he came out of whatever kriffing trance he’d put himself into.

“Yes, alright.” The general stumbled to his feet and managed to walk over to the chair in a straight line with minimal fumbling.

Cody took a deep breath.

“Get the generals those stim-shots before we have to move out.” He ordered over the comms.

///

They’d stuck Ahsoka with Master Mundi. The unfamiliar-familiar feeling of the Abiik-Kemirs’ kind of shields seemed like it was setting him on edge. They crept down the hallway, Master Vos leading the way with one of his gloves off. Ahsoka felt Wolffe struggling against the death that was in everything under the mountain. Even to her it felt like there was nothing but that death no matter how far she stretched. Sure, the bond was there and the Light was always there, even in a place like that. But it felt kind of like the Petranaki Arena where it was so deep into everything it was like a caf stain you couldn’t get out of your cloak no matter how hard you tried.

Ahsoka shivered and drew on the Light, way too aware of Master Mundi right there next to her able to sense every mistake. She could sense Master Plo's shields blending around Fives somewhere near the back, and he was struggling too, but hopefully. Hopefully. She couldn’t do anything to help or else Master Mundi might notice him. She was very unhappy about that. But it felt like they had everything under control. Hopefully.

Master Qui-Gon was quieter than ever over the bond, even after she’d let her shields down a little. They’d been right about the comms failure. She could sense where they were, kind of, but a lot of the hallways were either collapsed or unstable and the amount of death and hopelessness in the Force, plus having to use breathing masks with all the dust, hadn’t made it easy. The sting of pain from the 104th reminded Ahsoka that they shouldn’t have been there any more than she should’ve. That made her angry too and that just made it even harder to try and keep a hold of the Light, the bond, and still be aware of the stupid fekking clankers she had to keep watch for because with so much shifting rubble and so many people, her montrals weren’t helpful at all.

“Halt! General Mundi,” called Commander Bacara from the side hall he’d been checking.

She didn’t need to see the bodies to know that was what was going to be down there. It made her feel sick of herself, but she didn’t want to see them, to see if it was Waxer or Boil, Stacks or Cody, Redeye or Wooley. Maybe Commander Bly.

“General Jinn was through there before they died,” Rex said suddenly.

There was a shift between Master Vos and Master Mundi, and Commander Wolffe and Commander Bacara. After a tense second, Master Mundi nodded.

“We keep moving in that direction, then. I can’t sense any traps ahead at the moment.”

///

Cody didn’t know if they knew that he and Bly were getting the command line. It didn’t seem like it; nobody’d bothered to try and contact them and they couldn’t reach anyone on their own no matter what they tried. General Jinn and General Secura were so worn down that he didn’t think they’d be able to hear much if that was how the Force worked.

What he was more concerned about, aside from the immediate worry about whether they’d survive the rescue attempt or not, was Fives and Rex’s proximity to General Mundi. Wolffe too, but less so. He’d managed to lock himself down just enough to stay out of General Jinn’s way with everything else going on, and that had to carry. But the 104th was coming down and taking those two with them and that was simmering away in the back of his head.

The path lit up red on his display and he motioned for them to stop while it updated. He pretended he didn’t notice General Jinn sagging against the wall and shuffled to cover it from the men. They all knew anyway, but they didn’t need the kind of damage to morale seeing it would do at the moment.

“General Secura!” One of the 327th’s called down the hallway.

A tangle of wires hung down from the ceiling and the techs had the kind of excited energy that made Cody feel like the day was about to get a lot longer than it already was. It might be good. They really needed it to be good.

“What is it?” General Secura peered at the tangle with a tired, skeptical look on her face.

“These are still live, and we found a connection to the intruder suppression system. If we can link the emergency power to it, we might be able to get the particle shields working and keep the clankers from sneaking up behind us!”

Oh, thank the ka’ra.

“And you’re sure that’ll work?” General Secura looked at the tech.

“Ninety percent, general.”

She turned to Bly who tilted his head at Cody to check before he nodded at her.

“Alright, good work. Get it done.” General Secura went back to General Jinn.

Cody motioned for Bly to come over. “Was that a natural collapse?”

Bly looked down at the hallway, that dust still turning in lazy spirals in Cody’s night vision. His vod shook his head.

“I don’t know. It seems like it probably was, but.” Bly shrugged.

“Me either.”

///

The Marines were like a legion of ARCs. 2C’s intimidation floated around and through Fives’ like a cloud, the Darkness around them oozing in the shadows like some kind of undead thing was crawling through them. They were near the back and there was this misty, foggy feeling that was too much like General Koon to be anything else all around Fives’ shields. That was weird enough on its own, but the sensation of that deep, cold thing from Rex got deeper and colder the further they went.

Or maybe that was Ben, but it didn’t make sense for Fives to be feeling that cold if it was just him.

There was also a feeling like they were about to walk into a ray shield or something. Their progress was slowing down, more corners getting checked, more waiting for the scouts to get back and listening for blasterfire in the meantime. Fives’ grip tightened on his blaster and he leaned into the comfort of his squad around him.

The danger didn’t snap like Fives had been expecting. It was more like a slow build he hadn’t noticed until the wave crested on top of them. One second there was nothing and the next, there was the blue light and harsh sound of General Mundi’s lightsaber reflecting red bolts that were hard to pick out through the sea of bodies and what few of the red emergency glow lights were still active.

“To the sides! Back in the center!” Commander Bacara’s voice broke through the sudden noise and light and everyone snapped to, the Marines moving almost before he’d said anything.

Fives flanked Hevy with Echo, blaster up and aimed. The sea of brothers parted in front of them.

The clankers’ metal reflected the red light so dully it looked like the rock was moving, the deep shadows further down completely covering however many more were down there.

It was hard to take his eyes off General Mundi, General Vos, and Commander Tano. He did; of course he did. But it was harder than they ever said in training to ignore the graceful whirlwinds of the lightsabers. Fives could even feel the bolts bouncing back through the mists around his shields. Clankers went down to their own fire, to the heavy spray of fire from the vode, to a popper lobbed over everyone’s heads.

It was over in less than a minute. Commander Bacara was the first one to go check, headlamps lighting up the smoke in something that looked kind of like General Koon’s shields felt. The Force had a few more puddles of blood, but everyone in 2C had made it. It was official. They’d just been in their first firefight. They were still shinies, technically, but they’d survived it.

“Small company. Looks like they cobbled together from a few different units. The mountain must’ve come down on top of them too. Their programming will have adjusted by now,” Commander Bacara said as he made his way back.

“Any sign of a tactical droid?” Asked General Mundi.

“Not that I saw. If there is one, it wouldn’t be anywhere we can get to in any kind of time.”

“That was too easy.” Rex’s voice still surprised everyone; there was a small twist of discomfort through the Marines too.

“How so?” General Mundi had the same kind of careful, diplomatic tone Fives had heard from General Ti when Bric pissed her off.

So that _was_ a Jedi thing.

“It seems like a test. They were seeing how we responded. There have to be more. Even with the collapse and the 212th and 327th cutting them down, there’ll at least be enough to put a dent in us. So either that was a patrol, or they already know we’re here. With where we are.” Rex trailed off and Fives could feel a shrug.

There was a snap in the Force from everyone and Fives clenched his hands around his blaster again.

“Proceed with caution, then. We keep to the plan.”

The ranks closed up and Fives tried to get past what’d just happened. His blood was humming; his entire body was humming. The Force was humming too. They’d survived. Everyone, the Dominoes and the Chereks. They’d all made it through the first fight.

///

“Are you telling me we can’t get to them?” That was all they needed.

“They’re in the one place that isn’t collapsed and the rest of the scouts said that we couldn’t get through that part of the factory, too many collapsed passages,” Boil said tiredly.

Cody took a deep breath. “Okay. Get the comms working. I don’t care what you have to do, just get that done.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get Wooley to look over General Jinn again.” That stim-shot was wearing off way too fast.

“If we can find him, sir.”

“Well if you can’t, talk to Coric or Kix.” Cody really hoped there was a better reason for them not being able to find him than the one for every other problem they had. “Loop the 327th into it too.”

“Already done, sir.”

“Good.”

///

Every step was a battle. Every muscle felt like lead, every bone like flimsi, every breath a labor, his throat caked with dry dust. His senses in the Force felt like bloodshot, tired eyes; he could sense Knight Secura’s own exhaustion, the men’s worn-thin determination around them.

The rubble kept shifting, echoes of miniature rockslides coming down the closed, cracked hallways. Debris and dust was scattered around even the clearest pathways.

What was even more disturbing was the sudden disappearance of the droids. There hadn’t been any sign of them since Qui-Gon had sensed the new troops touching down. That same disturbance was echoed from Knight Secura and the commanders. Slowly, slowly, it trickled down through the ranks, the air around them firming into the same tension he could sense descending on the mountain like a storm.

“Any contact yet, Bly?” Knight Secura labored over a piece of fallen stone.

“Not yet, but they’re still working on it. We’ve got the general report channel; they’re sweeping from there.”

“Let us know as soon as you get them. Our comms get priority.”

“Yes, sir.” Commander Bly disappeared again.

Qui-Gon paused for a second, listening for any droids. Still nothing.

“They’ve adjusted,” he said, charting a way around the next pile of rubble.

“If they take down the Marines, it’ll be a big win for the Separatists.”

“Could that have been the point?”

Knight Secura hesitated. “How could they have known that the 21st was close enough to respond?”

“I don’t know, but that’s the assumption that they were the point in the first place. Could the point have been the spectacle? Making the Republic and the GAR look incompetent?”

Knight Secura shook her head, looking around before she started to climb over yet another pile of rubble.

“How did they know enough to set it up?”

“I don’t know, but doesn’t it look that way, Knight Secura?” Qui-Gon’s last conversation with Dooku whispered through his mind.

There was another hesitation before she nodded reluctantly. “For them to know enough to do that, though.”

“We already know that there are independent actors in the Outer Rim. Powerful ones. If it’s not internal it’s entirely possible that one of them may be acting for the Separatists. The Republic isn’t very popular out here.” That didn’t feel right, though, however more likely it sounded.

“I know, but it seems a little extreme, doesn’t it?”

“Look at what the Kaminoans did for the Republic. And that was before the war. These days, I wouldn’t be surprised by the lengths any multi-system government would go to for their position.”

Knight Secura was silent for a moment while they helped some of the medics with some injured troopers.

“Do you think the Regencies would still have enough control for something like that? Or are you thinking more along the lines of the Hutts?”

“It sounds like something the Hutts would do. We were close enough to their space on the way here and their intelligence network is at least as big as the Republic’s. Probably bigger.” It sounded more likely.

Knight Secura took a sip from her canteen and pursed her lips. “Why? What purpose does it serve?”

“With all the attention on Ryloth now, if the Republic manages to get the Separatists off the planet, there’ll be immense pressure to do something about all the slaving.”

“And the Hutts have a vested interest in keeping that from happening.” Knight Secura pursed her lips again and shook her head. “It sounds like something they would do, but with Senator Taa in place, it’ll just get pushed under the table, not eliminated. And it’ll cost more than Ryloth is worth if it gets uncovered too. This is something else. I don’t see what gain the Regencies could get from it if this was them.”

What did it say that Qui-Gon was _relieved_ that Knight Secura sounded like she was thinking the same as he was?

“So you think this could be internal.”

“I’ll have to think about it once. Once we’re out of here, but that makes the most sense. Being a double agent, especially one in a high ranking position. That’ll pay well going either way.”

“I think a talk with Master Tholme may be in order once we’ve had the chance to get everything back together.”

Knight Secura laughed weakly. “If we can find him.”

///

“We’ve got Commander Bly!” A shout went up over the comms.

Rex jerked out of the Force, shaking off the jarred feeling. A buzz went around until the vod got to the front and handed General Mundi the comm.

“He says he’s going to patch us through to General Jinn and General Secura, sir.”

“Good work.” General Mundi took the comm and went over to Wolffe and Bacara.

Rex went to get closer, but a draft in the Force went by his shields. It didn’t look like General Mundi, General Vos, Wolffe, or Padawan Tano had sensed it. It’d been there though; Rex was sure about that. He glanced around again before he turned on his night vision and headed into the gloom.

The Force was caked with different leftover and castoff from more and more violent battles. Rex didn’t have to look at the walls to know that there’d be carbon scoring and lightsaber burns. He swept around the rubble and debris with his DCs, but he couldn’t see anything useful. As muddy as the Force was, his eyes were less than useless even with his HUD.

It went against every instinct he had, and he could feel the cost before he even closed his eyes.

It’s not that he could _see_ so much as that as soon as he close his eyes, he didn’t have to.

He _knew_.

Every step was placed without a thought or a hint of a scramble or a trip. Lines of Dark and Light and Force were like guides, physically pressing against him before he tripped on something. The signatures of the vode and the jetiise behind him were warmth that he could feel like there was a fire back there. He shifted.

There. Right ahead of him there was a drop in the current. That was the dip, the drowning machine under the surface. Rex swallowed. He knew, vaguely, that he should be afraid, or at least worried. And he was, but that was behind this overwhelming sensation of calm and competence that he’d been missing for so long he’d almost forgotten it’d ever even been there in the first place. There was finally bedrock under him and he sent a message over his comm before he brought his blasters into position.

He took another deep breath. And then he fired on the clankers he’d found hiding behind a massive half closed blast door.

They swarmed, but he heard them hitting the floor, felt his bolts connecting, stepped around where they were about to fire. He twisted the Force around him, the move coming to him easily in the space he was in. It probably wouldn’t do much to a clanker’s sensors, but it was worth trying. He could sense the slight protection it was giving him from their bolts, and that was always a plus.

General Mundi, General Vos, Wolffe, Bacara, Padawan Tano, and a ton of vode Rex still didn’t know were closing fast. The dip in the Force was starting to fill, current shifted enough for the drowning machine to get out of its cycle. The Light wave bore down into this trap he’d stepped into. He stepped to the side, feeling the heat of a blaster bolt right by his leg through his armor. Clankers kept hitting empty space and he kept firing. His hands were buzzing with the recoil and he could finally hear boots coming for him and the hum of a kyber crystal in the Force. Four kyber crystals.

Fives, right.

Rex opened his eyes and was just as blind as he was with them shut. The input was there, but it was like he’d bypassed it. He didn’t need it. Tiny shifts and he kept hitting the tinnies, one after the other hitting the ground as scrap metal. The Force was moving his hands, tiny little twitches that were as physical as the guides he’d felt on the way to their hiding place.

Three Lights actually blinded him and Rex felt the heat of a lightsaber in front of him.

It took a second for his brain to reconnect with his eyes, and when they did there was a shield of blue in front of him and a Cerean next to him. Bacara was on General Mundi’s other side, firing into the cloud of clankers that was. Huh, that was a lot bigger than it’d seemed before. General Vos was on his other side with Padawan Tano’s lightsaber just visible behind him.

That calm competent sensation was still flooding Rex’s mind and he still felt the Force guiding his hands. Brothers crowding in behind them hadn’t changed that. What was different was the sudden spike of concern from Wolffe that cut into Rex’s head. He tried to get that calm across, but he was almost positive that it didn’t get through.

Either way, the crowd of brothers got bigger and it was pretty clear that the clankers were trying to disengage to regroup. It was too bad that that was right where they all needed to go.

“Keep pushing them back, men!” General Mundi ordered, pressing forward, still slowly but surely.

Rex’s lightsaber had gotten heavier on his belt, but that still wasn’t the smart option. Not with the cloud of red bolts in front of them. Instead, he kept leaning into that place he’d gotten to in the Force and switched out his charge packs. He dug into his belt and pulled out one of Silas’ poppers.

“Eyes!” Rex threw, _pushing_ it to go right into that eddy.

There was a sizzle and a clang and the cloud got a little thinner. There were still more, and they were coming as fast as the vode were, new numbers flooding their ranks. General Mundi was providing a lot of cover, but the tides could still turn badly; Rex could sense the currents shifting around him.

The walls were weak.

Rex knew how to _pull_.

The walls were weak, Rex knew how to _pull_ , and there were two Jedi Masters who could do the same.

“General Mundi, we might be able to cut them off.” It was still weirdly familiar to be reporting like that, even with everything.

“How?” General Mundi _pushed_ a block of duracrete down the hall and the sound of metal being crushed echoed like metallic thunder.

“There’s a weak wall in the area they’re coming from. If we can get close enough, we can _pull_ it down. They’ll be cut off and we might be able to crush enough of them to put more of a dent in their forces too.”

“Isn’t it structural?”

“No.” Rex could sense that. Somehow.

He knew it was true.

General Mundi pushed forward again. “Commander Bacara?”

“If that’s all accurate, it would make this a lot faster, General Mundi.”

“We’ll do that, then. You’d best be right, Rex.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a short, violent press to the wall. General Mundi kept ahead, hacking and slashing through the clankers with quick, precise Makashi movements that seared themselves into Rex’s skull whether he was watching or sensing them. Rex was right behind him anyway, and right next to Bacara. Their brothers followed them alongside Wolffe, a hail of blue fire cutting down the clankers as they appeared.

Lights were still going out and the loss was building up with the smoke and dust in the air.

Their track was littered with grey and maroon painted white armor and new clouds of blood in the Force, but they were at the wall.

“What’s your plan?” General Mundi reflected a bolt and Rex took down the clanker that’d fired it.

“One of us takes down the wall and the others keeps the debris from getting to the rest of the men.”

There was a split second surge of surprise before it was carefully tucked away.

“You think you can do either of those?” General Mundi felt disturbed and skeptical and it bounced right off Rex’s shields.

“Yes, sir, but I’d rather pull the wall down. I’m not accurate enough for the kind of pushing and pulling we’ll need to do on the debris.”

There was another disturbed pause.

“On your mark, then.”

Rex switched over to just the comms. “Back off slowly. Make it look like they’re forcing us away.”

A slight jolt of surprise went through the Force, but they did it, pulling back centimeter by centimeter.

“Fifteen seconds.” Rex switched back to his vocoder.

He lobbed a popper overhead and let his bucket compensate through the explosion.

“Ten.”

He started to gather the Force, dipping into the Dark; the icy cold water seeped into every crack and crevice but the raw power was right under Rex’s skin.

“Five.”

He lowered his blasters and put them back into their holsters.

“Four. Three. Two. One.”

Rex grabbed onto the wall, felt the cracks against incorporeal fingers, and _pulled_ with everything he was. His entire body seized with the pull every muscle going taut with the wave. The world turned into the sound and feeling of the rock exploding out of place and Rex was thrown back into his body so hard he stumbled back into Bacara.

Rex gasped in air and bent over, bracing himself on his knees. He could feel General Mundi and General Vos pushing back the shrapnel, neatening up the hallway. There was arcing electricity from half crushed clankers and the emergency power supply, but it was exactly like the Force’d said.

Finally, General Mundi turned back to them. “We need to keep moving.”

Rex gathered the Force again, feeling that same kind of dull, shocky, twitchy feeling from Christophsis. It was a lot weaker, though. He took a deep breath, redrew his blasters, and kept marching next to the generals.

He could still _feel_ Bacara’s eyes on him, everyone’s eyes on him after that. At least they weren’t looking at Wolffe or Fives anymore. They wouldn’t after that kind of display. At least there was that.

They were alive too, that was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’re not a fully initiated Force Sensitive until you’ve blindly followed the Force into mortal danger all by yourself!
> 
> Hi…I’m so sorry for the delay on this! First my anxiety kicked my ass, then the election, then everything else. I also got stuck in rewriting hell and I’m not quite out of that yet, but it’s getting there. Thank you so much for being patient and for sticking with this through the delays; I really appreciate it!
> 
> Mando'a Translations
> 
> Osik-Shit  
> Ka'ra-Stars  
> Vod-Sibling/Brother  
> Vode-Siblings/Brothers  
> Jetiise-Plural of Jedi


End file.
